


Let the Brocation Commence

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Remix, F/M, First Time, Gen, M/M, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-19 07:06:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5958241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>COMPLETE:  Part 3 of 3 now up!  Inspired by 6x11 Kuleana, but vague spoilers up to 6x12.<br/><i>Walking into the kitchen he blinks at Steve’s back and remembers a half gone bottle of whiskey, the press of Steve’s leg against his dick, and a panic attack seizing up his chest for the better part of four hours.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1:  Saturday

Danny walks in and finds Steve in the kitchen making coffee. “You gonna put butter in that today babe?”

“Nah,” Steve says, shrugging his shoulders. “Just plain black today.”

“Ready,” Danny asks, grabbing his own to go cup out of Steve’s cabinet and filling it to the brim. Saturday at eight in the morning means Danny needs at least two cups in one.

“You gonna tell me what this is,” Steve asks, leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping his coffee slowly. “All I know is Kono and Chin are wishing me a great three day weekend getaway with you and you telling me to pack a bag for ‘swimming, hiking, lounging, and general merriment’, to quote you.”

“Can’t a guy give another guy a surprise brocation,” Danny asks, spreading his hands wide and grinning even wider.

Steve snorts. “Do you not remember how the last brocation went? And also, since when do you approve of the word brocation?”

“I do not approve of the word, but seeing as how tickled you were to have come up with it, I am giving a concession to the word,” Danny says magnanimously, bowing. “So let’s go.” He swats Steve on the butt as he heads out of the kitchen. “Hop to soldier!”

“Sailor,” Steve says.

“The fuck ever, just get your scrawny ass in the car,” Danny says gesturing out of the door.

“Scrawny,” Steve says, pausing as he passes past Danny and flexing a very impressive bicep at him.   “Do I seem scrawny to you? Who you calling scrawny, shortstuff?”

Danny’s tongue comes out in that _‘you’re annoying me so I’m biting my tongue to keep from saying unsavory things right now so shut the fuck up’_ way of his and he plants his hands flat on Steve’s back and gives him a good shove towards the Camaro. “Just get in.”

Danny slings Steve’s duffle bag into the back seat next to his own and settles into the drivers seat. Steve frowns at him. “This is not starting off well, Daniel.   I really do get motion sickness.”

“Then puke in a barf bag, partner, you can’t drive if you don’t know where we’re going,” he says, and Steve slides into the passenger seat and folds his arms over his chest petulantly. “Jesus, Steve, I want to surprise you okay?”

“Seems to me you could surprise me just as easily by saying, hey Steve, go straight 30 miles. Take a left.”

Danny’s tongue licks his teeth again and his fingers clench on the wheel, and it’s shocking but that’s as far as the flare goes. No snark. No bitching. No whining. No bickering. He’s somehow able to hold it to just a clench, and then a quick nod. “Fair enough,” he says, and then steps out of the car.

Steve grins at him as they cross paths in front of the car and Danny hands him the keys. “Thanks partner.”

+

It’s a good two hour drive up winding roads with beautiful scenery. They actually lapse into a relaxed mutual silence, interrupting it only occasionally to talk about a song on the radio or a random memory Steve has about a particular overlook or scenic pull over.

Steve’s phone rings at about the halfway point and he looks down at the unknown number and frowns, bringing it up to his ear. “Hello?” Steve’s easy posture suddenly shifts into stiffness and Danny frowns. “Whoever this is, will you please identify yourself, because this is really pissing me off.”

Danny looks over at him and makes a questioning gesture.

Steve just shakes his head. “Mom?”

Nothing.

“Catherine?”

Again, the silence stretches on.

Steve closes his eyes and Danny feels the relaxation and happiness and ease of the last hour dry up and settle into a deep down ache in his bones. “Whoever this is, stop it. Okay? Fuck you. Stop it.”

Steve hangs up and Danny thinks for a second he’s going to toss his phone out of the speeding car. Instead he tosses it in the backseat hard enough to probably shatter the screen when it knocks against the doorjamb and clatters to the floor. His knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.

“The hell,” Danny asks.

“It’s like every few fucking days,” Steve says, staring forward at the road. “They call and they just sit there, and I can hear them breathing. All I know is that they’re a woman, and I think they’re maybe crying.”

“Jesus, what the fuck,” Danny says, twisting to look for the phone. “What, have you traced it? What am I saying of course you’ve tried to trace…. You really think it’s your Mom or Catherine?”

Steve shrugs. “Don’t know who the fuck else it would be.”

Danny studies the side of his face, jaw clenched and muscle jumping. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, and then, “no. I don’t know. It’s… unnerving. Like I’m being stalked.” He shakes his head. “I feel like it’s Catherine though.”

“Why,” Danny asks. “I mean, why wouldn’t she just say it’s her?”

“Because of how she left, Danny,” Steve says, shrugging.   “Because she hurt me. Because she’s a fucking chicken shit and can’t fucking face me.”

“Wow, okay,” Danny says, nodding and looking away. “Haven’t seen that anger directed at her ever, babe. I confess it’s kind of good to see.”

Steve glances over at him. “Why would that be good to see?”

“Because,” Danny says, spreading his hands. “Because you don’t talk about it and I have no way of taking your temperature, and I know that so many times when people hurt you you eat it and swallow it like its your fault and you just wear it like a bruise. So yeah, anger I like. Anger means you’re blaming her, not yourself.”

“I blame myself too,” Steve says quietly. “But yeah. I’m angry at her too. I just don’t understand why I’m not enough for her. I don’t understand why I’m not good enough.”

“Woah, hey, fuck that, hello?” Danny reaches over and grabs Steve’s arm. “That? No. This is her, okay babe? Her thing. Not you. You are good enough for her, hell, you’re fucking too good, okay?” He tightens his grip on Steve’s arm and shakes him. “Okay?”

“I don’t know, Danny, I’m the one that keeps being left,” Steve says, and the look on his face breaks Danny’s heart.

“You are not responsible for other people being un fucking believable assholes,” Danny says, voice dark and so very, very angry. “Your mother is an asshole, a selfish asshole, okay, and your Dad was wrongheaded and I hate what he did to you even if he did think he was protecting you, he should have explained, and Catherine is just… I don’t know what the fuck Catherine’s problem is, I really, really don’t, and I wish I did, but you don’t deserve any of this, Steve. Not a damn fucking bit of it.”

“I just wish I knew why she left the way she did,” Steve says, forcibly unclenching his fingers from the steering wheel, flexing his hand. “Just. Sitting on my porch like she couldn’t fucking wait to bolt, bags next to her. Couldn’t even wait until morning. Couldn’t even wait until I got in. Had a beer.”  Danny closes his eyes and feels horrible, crushing guilt. It obviously shows because Steve is looking at him and not at all at the road, with suspicion in his eyes. “Danny?”

“I may have the answer to that,” Danny says quietly, looking over and then quickly away, hand coming up to scrub at his face. “Just. Please understand I did it because I care about you, about your happiness.”

Steve reaches over and turns the radio completely off and pulls over to the side of the road, turning in his seat to face Danny. “Danny, what did you do?”

Danny can’t look at him and it’s making his hands clench into fists. “Its just, you wouldn’t talk to her. I kept trying to get you to talk to her. You don’t hold people’s feet to the fire, Steve. You gotta. For your own sake, Steve, you gotta talk sometimes, you have to, okay?”

Steve huffs out a breath. “Danny, spit it out.”

“I asked her to meet me at the bluff that day, the day she left,” Danny says, finally meeting his eyes. “You weren’t asking her, and someone had to.” Danny huffs and rubs a hand over his face again, looking away. “I just wanted to know she was here to stay. I wanted to know she wasn’t going to wreck you again.”

Steve closes his eyes. “Danny. What did you do?”

“I just asked her, babe,” Danny says softly. “I just asked her to not hurt you again. To stay if she was going to stay. And to admit it if she wasn’t.”

Steve nods. “Because I wouldn’t.”

“Because you weren’t,” Danny says, nodding. “And she didn’t admit it then, Steve, but I guess that’s why she left that day. I asked her if she was going to stay and she said she wanted nothing more and I took it to mean yes. But I guess she was working her way up to it. I guess she just wanted a few days to be with you without having to address things, and I guess maybe I… Maybe I closed that window for her.”

Steve nods again. “Made her rip the bandaid off.”

“I’m sorry, Steve,” he says. “I want you to understand, even though I don’t expect you to like it, but I’d still do it today. I don’t regret doing it. But I’m sorry for how it turned out.”

Steve leans against the door and looks at Danny. Danny tries to meet his gaze, tries to say in the silence that he feels awful, but he did it out of love and he wouldn’t do it any different now. Shockingly, Steve actually smiles. A slow, sad smile, but a smile. “Thanks Danny. You always got my back.”

Danny smiles back, straightening slightly. “Yeah, man. Always.” He licks his lips nervously. “You gonna hit me?

Steve rolls his eyes. “I said thanks Danny, why would I hit you?”

“For butting into your business? For sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Danny asks, spreading his hands. “You’re really not pissed?”

“I get why you did it, Danny,” Steve says finally, shrugging. “If anything I guess I’m more touched than pissed.   You were trying to protect me.”

“I was,” Danny says softly.

“Okay,” Steve says. “So. Shall we? We’re burning daylight.”

+

An hour later, Steve lets out an appreciative whistle. “Nice, Danno,” he says, taking in the ranch style home, looking out of the back at the hammock in the wide expansive yard, the ocean beyond it. “This is where you took Melissa?”

Danny nods. “And this time, there’s the added bonus of no psycho ex husband showing up to make minced meat of my abdomen,” he says, idly reaching up to feel his stomach, patting it. “Unless you’re not telling me something.”

Steve frowns at him just slightly. “Should I be suspicious of your intentions, Danny? Are you trying to woo me into your bed with a romantic get away?”

“Am I trying to…” Danny laughs, shaking his head. “I’m trying to woo you into a better mood with a _bro_ -mantic, relaxing vacation.”

Steve’s frown deepens. “Better mood?”

“You’ve been pretty annoyed with me lately,” Danny says, avoiding his eyes as he crosses his arms and stares out at the back yard. “What with the power of my negative negativity.” He pauses, looking down. “Look, you’re not wrong, okay? That’s something I’ve come to… I’ve been--”

“Hey,” Steve says, knocking his shoulder into Danny’s.

“I’m not doing that great, head-space-wise,” Danny says quietly. “And you’ve been getting the fall out of that, and I just want you to know I recognize that.” He finally glances at Steve, smiling softly. “So. I’m making up the failure of our couples retreat with this, in which negativity is not allowed.”

Steve nods, staring at the side of Danny’s face since he’s looking away again. “I’ve maybe not been in that great of a place either, partner,” he says softly. “So maybe it’s been a two way street.”

“So,” Danny says, clapping his hands together, losing the seriousness of his tone and flashing a brilliant smile at Steve. “We’ve got television, movies, our very own private ocean entrance not twenty feet away, a hammock, hiking within two miles, and several nice restaurants with great food within ten.” He nods, raising an eyebrow at Steve. “Did I miss anything?”

Steve smiles back, warmth spreading through him at the sight of the twinkle in Danny’s eyes. Something he hasn’t seen in quite some time. He slings an arm around Danny and leans into him. “All I need for a good time is you, buddy.”

“I thought we established this _wasn’t_ about sex,” Danny says, laughing and stepping out of Steve’s grasp. “Come on. Let’s get settled and hit a restaurant for lunch. I’m starving.”

+

They have lunch at a café and Danny gets a club sandwich and spills half of his turkey and bacon and lettuce on his plate instead of in his mouth. Steve mocks him for being sloppy but talks with his mouth full of his burger and spits out little bits of meat when he laughs. Danny just grins and welcomes the ease back into their day.

“I thought we’d go hiking,” Danny says as they wind down their lunch, stabbing a fry into the ketchup and munching on it as he watches Steve grin at him.

“Yeah? That’d be awesome, Danny, but you hate hiking,” Steve says, laughing.

“I don’t hate hiking,” Danny says, and then holds up his hands. “Okay, I don’t love it either, but what I hate is competitive marathon hiking. I hate you saying lets take a little hike and then hiking up fucking Mt. Kilimanjaro 19,000 feet in the air to look at fucking caveman drawings.”

“Hey,” Steve says, pouting and stealing a fry from Danny. “That was our first date, don’t shit on our first date.”

Danny cracks up laughing, kicking his feet up on the chair next to him. “Our first date, huh? In which you fell off a cliff, cracked your head on a boulder, broke an arm, and found a dead body.”

Steve nods. “Best first date ever.”

Danny snorts. “Somehow, disturbingly, I really, really believe you think that.”

“Seriously, though,” Steve says, voice lowering into that serious tone he gets when he’s about to say something personal. A tone that makes Danny sit up in his chair and really, really listen. “I really do think that hike is when we actually became friends, Danny. Not just, ya know. People that work together. I shared that with you, it wasn’t just a hike, it was…” He looks away. “That was about my Dad, Danny, and. I don’t take people there often. Ever, actually.”

Danny closes his eyes and feels like an asshole. “Listen, you know I have foot in mouth disease right,” he says, opening them to give Steve an apologetic look. “I love that you did that, okay? I love that you wanted to include me in that, and I know it was important. And you’re right, that is when we became friends.” He waves his hand. “I just mean… you turn so many things into competitions, that hike being one. Who can get there faster. It’s a race. Who can scale the wall faster. Who can break the sound barrier.”

Steve nods, grinning. “Yeah. Me.”

“Fine, yeah, you,” Danny says with an eye roll. “Its you, it’s always you, you win at life, Steve wins all.” And he’s annoyed, because Steve always has to be a god damned topper, but he’s also fucking charmed because even when Steve’s being a jackass he’s being a charming one. “I’m just saying, let’s take a nice, leisurely, enjoy the scenery type hike, okay? At a nice, slow pace, where my knee won’t hate me, and I don’t feel like I have to whip my dick out and compare it to yours because we need to know who’s the manlier of men.”

Steve meets his eyes, raises an eyebrow, and grins the dirtiest grin Danny’s ever seen. “I make you want to whip your dick out? Danny I’m flattered.”

Danny almost falls out of his chair he laughs so hard.

+

The hike is actually really nice. Gorgeous forest around them, and thankfully the bugs aren’t too bad because it’s cool enough now that dusk is starting to set in.   At one point Steve darts an arm out to stop Danny in his tracks and points at four-point buck sipping from the stream and they stand there silently and just watch it.

“I don’t get it,” Steve says quietly as the buck finally starts trotting off, eyes still glued to it.

“Get what?”

“Hunting,” Steve says. “Look I mean I get hunting for food, to live, out of necessity, but I don’t get it for a trophy on the wall.” He glances at Danny. “I mean, how do you come out into their home and take a gun and just… delete them from the Earth.” He shrugs. “Disrespect them like that. Because you want to hang ‘em on your wall.”

Danny grins and squeezes Steve’s arm. “Half-baked cookie,” he says affectionately and then starts hiking forward again.

“Hey,” Steve says a bit later, turning around to walk backwards and slowing so Danny can catch up. Because Steve always walks faster. Steve always winds up ahead and doubling back. Danny’s not even annoyed, because Steve can’t even help it. It’s in his DNA to be first, to take lead, to be in front. It’s not something he’s in charge of, it seems. “So how’s Melissa?”

Danny frowns, because it’s kind of a bad subject. “Good? Fine I guess?”

Steve stops. “Danny.”

“I’m not self sabotaging,” Danny says, holding up his hands. “I’m not. I’m trying not to.”

“Then what,” Steve asks, falling in step with Danny.

“It’s just. It’s fine. It’s just fine.” Danny shrugs and glances at Steve. “It’s only fine, is the thing.”

Steve nods. “No fire?”

“And I’ve been trying to not self sabotage, ya know? Like you said. Bring her closer. Get past my self-destructive whatever the fuck,” Danny says. “And I’ve been. Ya know. Not in the best place, and it’s been easy to excuse the no fire on me just not being in a…” He laughs, shrugging again. “Not being in an able to be caught on fire place?”

“Danny not hanging onto a relationship that’s not what you want isn’t the same thing as self-sabotaging,” Steve says softly. “That’s not that I meant.”

“I know,” he says. “And it’s good. She’s sweet. I care about her, a lot, I do. I’m just not.” Danny sighs, and concentrates on hiking up the slight incline searching for words. “I think I just care about her, in a way that’s…” He stops, flailing his arms. “I like not having to make an effort. I like just coming home to comfort when she’s there. I like not having to watch what I say, and how I say it. I like how easy it is. It’s just.”

“Not who you are,” Steve says.

Danny nods. “Feels like a lie. Feels like biding my time.”

Steve nods and bumps his shoulder against Danny’s and they just keep going without saying anything else, and Danny feels light in a way he hasn’t in months. He feels like he’s been keeping this bottled up without knowing, feeling like he was going to explode with it, explode with everything. It’s only shocking in that it was so easy to let go of once it was out there. So hard to say but so easy to move past once it was said, Steve just getting it and moving on. Understanding him and not needing Danny to define anything further, not needing anything else from him at all.

“Waterfall,” Steve says, his face lighting up as he takes off at a jog at the sound of a burbling brook and the waterfall feeding into it. It’s not a competition, it’s just pure excitement and happiness, so Danny jogs along after him, laughing as Steve starts stripping his clothes off.

“Are you kidding me, it’s like 60 degrees out here, Steven!”

Steve grins over at him. “Gotta, Danny. You gotta swim in the waterfall. It’s a rule.”

“In the Steve McGarrett handbook of Assinine Idiotic Ideas of Insanity,” Danny asks, setting his pack down and sitting down on a rock next to it. “You’ll excuse me if I break this rule.”

Steve shrugs and strips his pants off, boxers and all, gloriously and totally fucking nude and then wades into the stream and immediately disappears under the water for several minutes before breaking out on the other side.

And Danny watches, speechless. Thrown and knocked off kilter in a way he can’t define. If it’s jealousy that Steve is that uninhibited, or that he just finds that much pure joy so easily in life. If it’s the fact that Steve’s got a pretty great ass, even if Danny’s pretty sure his own isn’t exactly one to be scoffed at if all of his previous partners are to be believed.

“Exhibitionist,” Danny calls to him when Steve waggles his eyebrows at him.

“Come on Danno,” Steve says, beckoning him with his hands. “It’s actually really nice.”

“I’m good,” Danny says, holding his hands up.

When Steve exits the water twenty minutes later he does so with zero self-consciousness and Danny is even more off kilter, unable to rip his eyes off of him. Dripping wet and grinning and turning closed eyes up towards the last little bits of sunshine and exuding just pure, pure happiness.

“I wish I had a camera,” Danny says suddenly. “Do you know how much money I could make if I just took a picture of you looking exactly like this? Thousands.”

Steve grins at him and pulls his jeans on, still soaking wet.   “Shut up.”

“Hundreds of thousands,” Danny says, and it’s like he’s not even aware he’s speaking, because he hadn’t meant to say any of this, and he doesn’t mean to let his eyes be traveling up and down Steve’s body, but he doesn’t even care. Can’t even make himself feel embarrassed. “You’re like a sculptors dream subject.”

Steve pauses, his shirt over his arms but not over his head and catches Danny’s eyes. “Danny?”

“Just.” Danny laughs and looks away, shrugging. “Man, I’m just saying.”

Steve smiles and pulls his shirt on over his head and reaches up to run his fingers through his hair and plops onto the rock beside Danny, leg pressed against his from hip to knee. “Yeah, well, you’re not exactly a nightmare.”

A few minutes pass in silence and Danny doesn’t move his leg, just seeps up the warmth from Steve’s thigh. “We should go before it’s too dark to see,” he says finally.

Steve nods and stands, holding a hand out to him to haul him up.   “Let’s go.”

+

That evening Steve tells him he owes him drinks for bowing out of dinner and drinks with Alissa so they find a hole dive bar fifteen minutes from the house around seven that night.

“You know, I hope you like being bossed around,” Danny says, cocking his hip against the bar and grinning at the gorgeous blonde between him and Steve. “He’s a control freak.”

“He only thinks I’m a control freak because he’s woefully unable to take control on his own,” Steve says, leaning in conspiratorially. “See, he needs my guidance. He’s kind of helpless.”

“Helpless,” Danny says, leaning in as well, pressing into the woman’s shoulder just slightly to shove at Steve. “My ass, helpless, helpless, I am full of help, helping is my middle name, helping is what I do!”

“Mr Chivalrous, we call him,” Steve says, grinning and shoving back. “Swooping in to save all the damsels in distress.” His grin widens. “And then fucking it up by having an apoplectic fit over a pothole.”

“Hey, it wasn’t a pothole, Steven, it was a crater, okay,” Danny says, and then turns to Tiffany, who is grinning and giggling and twisting her hair around her finger. “You see, he insists on driving, though I’m the one whose trained in combat driving I’ll have you know--”

“As a civilian,” Steve says to her, tapping her shoulder. “See, me, I was trained as a Navy SEAL. I was busy learning how to storm castles and rescue nations rather than how to weave in and out of 5 o’clock traffic without getting a hangnail.”

“Oooh, a Navy SEAL, were you one of the guys that got Bin Laden,” she asks, and Danny rolls is eyes because Jesus, the SEAL card. And they all ask it. They _all ask_ if Steve was the one that killed Bin Laden.

“Nah,” Steve says, waving a hand. “That was some other guys.”

“So he’s driving, my car mind you, because he always has to steal my car and drive it because he gets turned on at how her engine purrs--”

“Oh, what kind of car do you have,” she asks, turning to face him, her leg pressing into his thigh.

He grins. “Camaro.”

“Mm,” she says and she does that thing where they bite their lip and look up at you from under their lashes and he has to literally pinch himself because he’s wingmanning Steve here, not out for his own. It’s just so damn hard, though, just buzzed enough to not care about the fact that this dang bar puts little fucking umbrellas in their margaritas, to not notice the swell of her breasts under the tantalizingly low cut fuzzy sweater.

“It does not turn me on how her engine purrs, Danno,” Steve says, and Tiffany turns her head to look back at him. “It’s the speed. The speed is what turns me on.”

“So he’s driving it, speeding along, and see how he admitted it? He speeds. Please tell him that just because he is an officer of the law that does not give him carte blanche to break the speed limits?”

She raises an eyebrow, looking confused. “Carte blanche?”

Steve winks at her. “I am the law, honey, I can break whatever laws I want.”

“Oh, you bad boy, you,” she says, and swats him.

“And I say watch out for the crater in the road, and he says, aw come on Danny, it’s just a little pothole, except for when he speeds over it going like fifty bazillion miles an hour there’s this sick fucking crunch. I mean seriously, it made my ears bleed.”

“Oh no,” she says, squeezing Danny’s arm. “Your car!”

“I know, it was devastating,” he says, covering her hand with his and pouting his lip out. “I had to buy a new transmission.”

“Oh, whatever, you were due for some work on that thing anyway,” Steve says, waving a hand. “Not that he’d know what to do with it, he’s not as they say a ‘car guy’ really. He likes ‘em pretty and fast, but he doesn’t know how to open up the hood and know what’s going on inside.”

She raises an eyebrow at Steve and her hand slips off of Danny’s arm. “Do you?”

Steve nods.

Danny snorts. “Uh, excuse me.”

“I know a little,” Steve says, leaning into her. “I’ve been working on restoring my pop’s Marquis”

“Unsuccessfully,” Danny yells, a hand darting out to grab Steve’s wrist. “Very, very unsuccessfully, you are no car guy either there pal, you like to think you are but every time you quote/unquote ‘fix’ something, something else breaks!”

“Well you don’t even know how to change the oil, Danny!”

Danny laughs. “Yes I do, it’s called Pay the Mechanic To Do It For Me So I Don’t Ruin My Shirt, thanks very much.”

Steve cracks up and leans closer. “What a waste of money!”

“Waste, a waste of, it’s $20 Steven, open your wallet and part with some of that green shit called moula,” Danny says, miming paying out money. “God you’re such a cheapskate, why are you such a cheapskate?”

“I’m frugal!”

“You’re a tightass.”

“I am smart with my finances,” Steve says, poking him in the chest and grinning.

“You, friend, are miserly,” Danny says, lowering his voice. “Closed up tighter than clam’s ass at high tide!”

“But why should I pay when you’re there to pick up the tab,” Steve asks, wagging an eyebrow.

“You could at least put out sometimes,” Danny snarks back, smirking. “A guy gets tired of always footing the bill with nothing but blue balls to show for it.”

“So are you two a couple,” Tiffany asks, “or is this just a tag team of seeing who can get the girl? Not that I’m complaining.”

Danny and Steve both blink and turn to look at her. “Huh,” Steve asks, at the same time Danny says, “What?”

“I’m just trying to figure out if I’m in for a threesome, or if I have to choose.”

Danny’s been half hard for the past twenty minutes they’ve been talking to Tiffany but now he goes full on rock solid as he watches her hand travel up Steve’s leg to the swell in his jeans outlining his dick. He’s so entranced that it’s a complete surprise when her other hand, her warm, small, delicate little hand, covers his own dick as well.

He swallows and looks up, sees Steve staring at her hand in Danny’s lap, and backs up off the barstool suddenly. “Uh, you know what? I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to mislead you. I have a girlfriend, I was just enjoying the conversation.”

“Hm,” she says, chewing on her lip. “Seems like you’re interested.”

He laughs and waves a hand. “So uh. I’m just gonna grab a cab, ok Steve? You have the keys to the car.”

“That’s a shame,” he hears her say as he turns around and walks over to the door to the parking lot, dick throbbing.

He dials the number for the taxi cab company advertised on the wall and swallows past the urge to turn back around and grab her by her hair and shove his tongue down her throat. As he’s talking to the cab company he turns around in time to see Tiffany pulling Steve’s head down and wrapping a leg around his hip.

He turns around to find the name of the bar to tell the company where to pick him up and the dispatcher tells him it’ll take ten minutes to get there. Saying thanks he turns to walk outside and catches a glimpse of them still at the bar, Steve’s hair fucked up and her hand literally down his pants. In public. At the fucking bar.

Her hand. Down his pants.

He’s always had a weakness for forward women.

He walks outside to the empty parking lot, looks around, and walks around to the side of the building. Finding no one there he ducks into an alcove and unzips his jeans, pulls his dick out from his boxers, and jerks off quick and dirty leaning a hand on the wall and picturing Tiffany’s lips wrapped around Steve’s cock as Steve throws his head back and groans at all the dirty things she’s doing with her filthy little fucking tongue.

It’s not until the cabbie pulls up to the house and he pays him that he wonders why it was Steve’s cock he pictured her sucking off and not his own.

+

Steve stumbles in rumpled and happy at ten thirty and Danny offers him half of the ham sandwich he hadn’t finished yet before making a new one. He smirks at Steve’s wrinkled shirt that’s buttoned up all wrong and at the lipstick on the corner of his mouth and raises his eyebrows. “Fun, I trust?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve says, jumping up to sit on the counter and chomping down half of the remaining sandwich in two bites, talking around it. “Tiffany is a fun girl. A fun, fun, fun girl. Shoulda been there Danny. Fun.”

Danny laughs. “Shoulda been there, huh?”

Steve nods. “Fun, Danny.   You deserve fun too.”

“Saw her molesting you at the bar, man,” Danny says, snickering as Steve ducks his head slightly. “I mean, pretty brazen, out in the open like that.”

“Yeah, it was pretty hard to actually get her out to the car, she was…. Distracting.” He nods. “Very, very good at distracting.”

“I bet,” Danny says, cutting the second sandwich in half and handing one part to Steve. Steve grins at him and stuffs the whole damn thing in his mouth at once. “Christ, ya animal.”

“Worked up an appetite,” he says, bread flying out of his mouth.

Danny laughs and gestures. “Do you want another whole one?”

“Nah,” Steve says, swallowing and grabbing Danny’s glass of water, swallowing half of that down in one go as well. “I think I’m good. You take such good care of me though, thanks.”

“What I’m here for buddy,” Danny says, grinning and tapping him in the knee.   “Drink some more water so you don’t have a hang over.”

Steve downs the rest of the water and tries to set the glass down, instead misjudging and knocking it onto the floor. He frowns down as the plastic cup bounces on the tile. “Whoopsie.”

Danny cracks up laughing and bends down to retrieve the glass, tossing it into the sink. “You are a grown ass man, can you please explain to me why I find it fucking adorable that you say ‘whoopsie’ when you’re drunk?”

Steve grins down at him, sloppy and ridiculous and goofy, and puts a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Cuz you love me, Danno.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, grinning as Steve slides off the counter to stand on the floor. “Guess I do.”

“And I love you,” Steve says, and then bends down and surprises Danny with a bear hug, so tight and hard and followed up by a kiss at his hairline and it makes a part of his soul squeeze and a lump form in his throat.   Steve leans back and cups his cheek. “Seriously.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, clearing his throat and nodding. “Yeah, seriously me too.”

Steve ruffles his hair, swats his ass, and throws a goodnight over his shoulder.

Danny frowns and says, “Yo, the hair, Steven,” but he doesn’t mean it at all.

He doesn’t understand how a man that grew up with as much fucked up shit as Steve did, with a Mom that lies about everything and a Dad that sent him away, can give his love and affection so freely as that. Because Steve has never once pounded on Danny’s back during a hug in that _Bro I Love You Bro, No Homo_ sort of way that most men do. That Danny does. He has never once done that, has always just simply and easily hugged Danny and held him there, still and content.

And Danny just stands there, rocked by that and trying to recover and filled so to the brim with love and affection that he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

+

At three in the morning Danny looks up from the low volume of the television to see Steve settle into the corner of the couch. “Did I wake you? I kept it on low.” He gestures and grins. “In deference to your no tv after midnight rule.”

“No,” Steve says, rubbing at his eyes and yawning. “Got up to piss, saw the glow from the television. Can’t sleep?”

Danny shook his head. “No. Kept tossing and turning, finally gave up about 1.”

Steve frowns and reaches a hand to rest Danny’s thigh for a moment. “What’s wrong?”

Danny shrugs. “Sometimes insomnia just happens, Steve. For no particular reason.”

He can feel Steve staring a hole into the side of his head but keeps his eyes forward, watching the infomercial on Ginsu knives. They’re ridiculous and yet he still really, really wants a set. Its sad how well these stupid things work on him in the wee hours of the morning.

“Hey,” Steve says finally. “So I wanted to say something.”

Danny, resting his head against the back of the couch, rolls his eyes to look at him without turning his head. “Hm?”

“I wasn’t being fair,” Steve says, hugging his arms to his chest. “At the retreat, that night. I wasn’t very nice to you.”

Danny frowns. “Huh?”

“Oh come on, Danny,” Steve says, glaring at him before returning his gaze back to the tv. “You know what I’m talking about. The things I said that night. About your negativity.”

“The black hole of negativity that is Detective Danny Williams, yeah,” Danny says, grinning. “Yeah that wasn’t the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Steve closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “It hurt you enough that you remember it verbatim?”

“It struck a chord, yeah,” Danny says softly, reaching out to lay a hand on Steve’s arm. “But I mean it’s not like it’s not true, man. Sometimes you have to say not nice things to make an impact.”

“Yeah, and sometimes I do that,” Steve says, nodding. “Sometimes I say things that I know will hurt your feelings but I feel like I should say them anyway because in the long run you need to hear them.” He shakes his head. “But that night, that’s not what that was. That night was me being petty and pissy and lashing out at you and you didn’t deserve it.”

“I know,” Danny says, squeezing Steve’s arm again before letting his hand fall back to the couch. “Except yeah, I kind of did a little bit deserve it.”

“Danny I’m saying I’m sorry here,” Steve says, sounding annoyed.

Danny laughs because you’re not supposed to be annoyed when you say you’re sorry, you’re supposed to be sorry.   “Okay, I get that, and I appreciate that. Thank you, Steven,” he says, looking at him until Steve meets his eyes and nods. “And what I’m saying is, while I appreciate that you’re sorry you upset me, I also think what you said had some merit.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Maybe not,” Danny says, shrugging. “But I think our friendship can take it huh?”

“God,” Steve says, looking horrified at the notion that there was a possibility that it couldn’t. “I’d hope so!”

“But I get why you lashed out. You wanted to go out. Have fun. Forget all the… All the Catherine stuff and the Gabriel stuff and the every thing else that’s sucked for us for the past….”

“Forever,” Steve finishes.

“Yeah the past forever, but. I don’t work that way, Steve. I never have.” Danny looks at him and lifts a shoulder. “I’m a wallower. I wallow. I mope. I was moping. I was in it. I was in the tall grass, the weeds, the muck and the mud, I was too in my head.”

Steve nods. “So you wanted to bring me down with you, and I wanted to bring you up with me.”

“No,” Danny says, sighing and shaking his head. “No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t want to bring you down with me. Did I ask you to stay? Did I say one thing about you going?”

“No,” Steve says. “Actually you fussed at me Sunday for staying for lunch with you instead of going with Alissa.”

“Because I’m not a misery loves company guy, I don’t want to take you down with me,” Danny says. “I want you to be happy, buddy. That’s all I want for you. I don’t want you down in the fucking shit with me.”

“Then why won’t you let me bring you _up_ with _me_ ,” Steve asks. “Why won’t you let me do that?”

“Because I’m not the kind of guy that can just do that, Steve,” Danny says, playing with the frayed ends of his cut off shorts, picking at them. “I think. I obsess. I’m a talker. I need to talk things out.”

“So talk to me.”

Danny shakes his head. “That’s not fair.”

Steve frowns. “What’s not fair?”

“You’re not a talker, Steve, you don’t talk,” Danny says, frowning down at his thigh and pick pick picking at the frayed ends. “So. I try not to burden you with my shit.”

“Don’t do that,” Steve says, reaching over and putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Don’t say that, that’s not fair, Danny, I’ve never minded you talking. I _want_ you to talk to me. Just because I can’t talk easily doesn’t mean I don’t want to be there for you.”

“It’s not that,” Danny says, and shoves a hand into the couch in frustration, squeezing the cushion. “It’s. I get it, okay? I get why you don’t talk.” He looks at Steve finally. “I really do. I know most guys don’t. I was raised by an oversharer of a mother, what can I say, it’s in my genes. But I get that most guys don’t talk. And it’s fine. It is.”

“But?”

“But see, you’ve been good, okay?” He nods and taps a finger on Steve’s arm. “You’ve been real good about being there for me. You’re an amazing friend Steve, and I know that you’ve always got my back, but see. I just feel like I talk all the time, and you do real good at listening, but it’s not reciprocated.”

“Not reciprocated,” Steve echoes. “What’s not reciprocated?”

“I feel like I open myself up and I bleed all over you, and you’re so good at getting the towels and stopping the bleed and stitching me up, okay? You are,” Danny says, drawing circles in the couch cushion. “But it’s one sided. I feel like I bleed all over you and meanwhile you, you get nosebleed and you turn your head so I don’t see it.”

“So, basically you’re saying I make you feel alone,” Steve says quiet, hurt. “I just make you feel even more alone.”

“No,” Danny says, reaching over again and grabbing Steve’s arm. “No, what did I just say to you, you’re an amazing friend. You’re always there for me.”

“Then why are you pushing me away? Why are you shutting yourself off?”

Danny closes his eyes and reaches up to scrub at his face. “Because I’m just so fucking _sad_ all the time.” He sighs, hands turning into fists as he balls them into his eyes.  “I don’t talk about it because it’s everything, it’s fucking everything, all the time, Steve, all the fucking _time._ And you’ve got your own shit, okay, and I don’t want to bring you down _with me,_ don’t you get that?”

Steve presses his leg into Danny’s thigh. “But _why_.”

Danny huffs out a laugh. “Why do I not want to bring you down with me? Because I love you, idiot. You don’t bring the people you love down with you. That’s not what you do.”

Steve shakes his head. “No, that’s not. I’m saying.” He huffs out a breath and rolls his eyes. “No, Danny, I’m saying I love _you_ so fucking _talk to me_. Why are you unhappy all the time?”

Danny breathes out and rolls his head back. “Where do I even start.”

“Just start, Danny.”

“Because my marriage imploded, Steve. Because I could have had it back but I didn’t leave. Because Charlie is my fucking son and she lied to me for three years. Because I love Rachel more than any woman I’ve ever known and I fucking hate her. Because my baby boy is sick, Steve.” Danny takes a deep breath, because he’s not said this to anyone, not even his mother. “Because he’s sick and I can’t be the guy that comforts him, I can’t hold him at night and let him cry on my shoulder, because he doesn’t fucking know who I am, I’m not that guy to him.”

“Danny,” Steve says, and it sounds like _fuck I’m sorry_ , which yeah, that’s about right.

“Stan’s that guy. I’m Danno. I’m fun Danno. And like, he knows in words right? He knows I’m Dad in words, and he likes me okay? And he’s a kid, so okay he loves me. I’m fun Danno, but.” His hands clench. “Stan’s the guy he runs to if he skins his knee. It’s Stan if his tummy doesn’t feel good, or he’s sad, or he’s scared. And it’s not his fault, he can’t help it, but it hurts man. It hurts so bad.”

“Jesus,” Steve says, and wraps a hand around the back of Danny’s neck because it’s not enough, but what the hell would be.

“And then there’s Matty,” Danny says, so quiet it’s almost inaudible. “Because, he was. Steve he was my guy. He was _the reason_ I got through my shit with Rachel. _The one fucking thing_ that kept me going for six months after it fell apart. He was.” Danny shakes his head, looking up at the ceiling, because his eyes are full of tears and he’s so fucking _tired_ of it. “He was my guy, that didn’t let me get away with shit and always knew when I needed to talk and when I needed to vent and didn’t hold it against me and got me drunk when I needed it and started fucking bar fights when I needed it and cried with me and just fucking, he was my fucking brother, man.”

When Steve doesn’t say anything Danny looks over at him and sees tears in his eyes.

“Please,” he says, looking away and shutting his eyes shut tight. “Don’t.”

“Sorry,” Steve whispers.

“Don’t apologize,” Danny says, squeezing his fists tight. “You don’t need to apologize.”

“Okay, Danny.”

“And I know I haven’t had him for four years, right?   He’s been on the wind for four years, so why is this hitting me so hard for so long when actually it’s not a change at all, he’s just dead now instead of missing,” Danny says, opening his eyes again, and tries to take a breath but instead it’s a gasp. “Like I thought I had figured out how to navigate ya know, but it’s just. It hurts as much now as it did then, man. That day in the basement a year ago with the barrel, Steve, it hurts as much now.”

“I know,” Steve says, sliding his hand to Danny’s shoulder like he just feels like he needs to move it, do something else, figure something else out to take the pain away, soothe it out of Danny’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” Danny says, squeezing his eyes shut. “Please, just. I can’t take the apologizing, you didn’t do it.”

“Danny I don’t know what you want me to say,” Steve whispers, blinking back his own tears. Danny can tell because every time they look like they’re going to spill Steve blinks and they recede.

“But that’s the point babe,” Danny says, looking at him. “That’s the fucking thing. What can you do? What can you say? You got a fix? You got enough sutures and stitches for that?” Steve looks hurt and that’s yet another reason why Danny doesn’t share this with him most of the time. Steve wants so bad to fix, and he just can’t. No one can. Danny lifts a hand and covers Steve’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m not asking, Steve, there’s no fix, there’s no patch, there’s no healing.   You can’t do anything. I don’t want you to apologize because you didn’t do any of it, and you can’t fix it.”

“But I can be here for you,” Steve says, and this time when he blinks a tear falls anyway, despite his efforts. Another follows. “Don’t you get that? Don’t you get that I am _here_ for you? You’re not alone, man.”

“Please don’t cry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Steve,” Danny says, grabbing Steve’s hand and pulling it down between them and squeezing.

“I’m not crying because my feelings are hurt, Danny,” Steve says, squeezing right back. “I’m crying because I hurt _with you,_ you know? Your shit _is_ my shit, got it?”

“Yeah,” Danny says, smiling softly. “I get it, babe.”

“And just, ya know?” Steve slips his hand out of Danny’s and sits up a bit straighter. “Just, don’t take this the wrong way, but fuck you a little bit okay? Just. Fuck you.”

Danny snorts, surprised. “Fuck me, huh?”

“Yeah, because who are you? You don’t get to say what kind of friend I get to be,” Steve says, pointing at him. “Huh? You don’t get to decide that I don’t get to be in your black hole with you. That’s not fair, man. That’s what friends are,” Steve says, leaning forward, raising his voice a little. “That’s what family is, Danny. And I got a fucked up family and a whole fuckton of pain on my own, but family is what you make it, okay, and you’re my family Danny, and I get to decide what kind of friend I am.”

“Okay,” Danny says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Okay, you made your point. I get it.”

“Yeah?”

Danny grins. “Yeah, Steve. I got it.”

“So you’ll stop holding yourself back from me,” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow. “You’ll stop hiding?”

Danny looks at him, studies his face, sees nothing but love and determination, and sighs. “Have I been hiding?”

“Yeah,” Steve says nodding. “You have. I’m not stupid, Danny. I know when you’re holding back from me.”

Danny nods. “I don’t always know though. It’s not always intentional.”

“But when it is. When you know.”

Danny nods again. “I’ll try, Steve. It’s just.” He shakes his head. “It’s just all the time, man. All the time? I’m sick of _myself_.”

Steve nods. “So you say hey Steve, it sucks right now, and I say okay, and we go get beer all right?

Danny grins. “Even at one in the afternoon?”

“Even at one in the morning,” Steve says. He gestures towards the television. “Even at three.”

Danny nods and smiles. “Thanks, babe. I love you, you know that right?”

Steve grins back. “Damn straight, you do.”


	2. Day 2:  Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part 2

Danny wakes up at 7am, 7:45am, and again at 8:25am, but when he finally swings his feet over the side of the bed and gets up is 9am. He actually slept pretty well for him, a good five hours is a lot these days. He pulls on a light white sweater and yanks on his jeans shorts again and trudges out of the room to the bathroom. He takes a piss and contemplates brushing his teeth, but instead decides he really wants not-toothpaste-flavored coffee, and it’s not like Melissa’s here expecting to be kissed, so he ignores the toiletries bag and heads into the kitchen.

Grabbing a mug he fills it with part of the half of a pot that’s left over, adds cream and sugar, and grabs a blueberry muffin, grinning to himself that Steve must’ve gone out early to go get them. Carbs in the morning: ain’t nothing better.

Grabbing a big pillow from the couch he walks out to the porch and over to the hammock, oh so so so carefully navigating getting into the hammock while still somehow managing to not slosh scaldingly hot coffee all over himself. He pitches the pillow behind his head and crosses his legs, setting the muffin on his belly and picking off a piece absently as he tests a sip of coffee. Nice and richly dark, Steve went all out on this one. He’ll need to ask him the brand and flavor.

He can just barely see Steve’s arms windmilling out of the surf as he swims. Danny wonders how many miles he’s swam at this point. He also wonders briefly if he’s doing it nude like he had at the waterfall the previous evening, and pushes away the wave of heat that comes over him at the memory. It’s just because of last night, the frustration of not being able to fuck away his frustrations after that Tiffany did such a good job of riling him up. That’s all.

Maybe if he keeps telling himself that he’ll believe it but right now he’s not buying it. Taking a too large slurp on coffee he burns his tongue and that takes care of that track of thought for the time being.

Fishing his phone out of his pocket he hits his most called list and pulls up Kono, hitting send. She picks up on the third ring sounding happy and relaxed and he smiles. “Hey doll, just wanted to check in and make sure ya’ll didn’t get any cases.”

“Danny, what the hell,” she says, but what was probably supposed to be an annoyed tone just sounds affectionate. “You’re on vacation, you’re supposed to turn off all appliances and zen out.”

“Well the last time I did that I got stabbed in the gut,” he says, grinning. “Granted, this time I’ve got Steve here to defend my intestines, but still. Maybe not so much with the cutting ones self off from the rest of the world in my near future.”

“You’re just calling to check up on me,” Kono says, and Danny sighs. “Yeah, that’s right, I called you out.”

“Kono I’m just checking in, in general.”

“No, you’re calling to make sure I’m okay,” she says, and he can practically counting points off on her fingers. “You’ve called me every day that we haven’t seen each other since Adam…” She hesitates and Danny’s heart aches for her. “Since he went away. It’s always for some poor pathetic reason that I’m not buying, Danny Williams, and I am on to you now.”

Danny grins. “Sue me.”

“I may just,” Kono says, but he can hear her smile. “For harassment and caring too much.”

“Horrible, horrible trait of mine.”

“It is,” she says. “You’re doing it now, you do it when I’m hurt or sick, and you did it when IA was investigating me. And your reasons for calling are pathetic. Hey, Kono, am I supposed to paddle towards the wave or away from it, I always forget? Hey, so, should I take Grace to see this movie? Like you don’t know your own daughter’s taste.”

Danny laughs as he sees Steve bobbing out in the ocean, obviously having just noticed he was out because he’s making a fool of himself waving like a maniac. He waves back. “Maybe I just wanna hear your voice, hon.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says affectionately. “Just go relax and enjoy yours and bossmans brocation, huh? How’s it going?”

“Good, we went hiking yesterday and found him a pretty lady to get right with last night,” Danny says, chuckling.

“Uh. Okay?”

Danny frowns. “What?”

“Well, why is that fun for you,” she says. “Getting him laid. Why not yourself?”

He laughs. “Kono, I’m still with Melissa.”

“So? He didn’t need to get laid, he’s been getting laid,” she says, and he can practically see her eyeroll. “This is supposed to be fun for the both of you, not you sacrificing yourself for him. You always do that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Danny, I know you think you hide things well and maybe you do to people that don’t pay attention, but I’m not people. And ya know, I may not call you on the days we don’t see each other but that doesn’t mean I don’t notice when you’re not there and care if you’re happy.”

Danny lays his head down. “Kono.”

“Stop it,” she says, and now she actually does sound annoyed. “Stop spending all of your time checking in on other people and let other people check in on you for once, huh?”

He chews his lip. “Your perception is annoying.”

“Tell me about it,” Kono says on a laugh. “So’s yours. Remember, you’re the one who taught me to notice all the little details at a crime scene, don’t forget that.”

“Yeah, at a crime scene! But I’m okay, Kono,” he says, brushing the remaining crumbs from the blueberry muffin into the grass beneath him as he swallows the last bite. “It’s sweet that you care though.”

“Oh God, whatever,” she says, and he laughs. “I’m just saying, how about instead of thinking of this as you making sure Steve has a good time, think of it as you being selfish for once and thinking about your own fun, and he can Party Wave _your_ good time, huh?”

He laughs again. “I’m having fun, Kono. Really.”

“Good,” she says. “Keep it up then.”

“Sir yes sir,” he says back, saluting the air.

“Can I go back to vegging out on the couch now,” she says, sounding put out and annoyed again. It’s an act and a bad one and Danny grins to himself. “I was fine before you called.”

“Fine, point made,” he says, watching Steve swim. “I’ll stop calling you.”

“No,” she says gently. “I like your calls. Just. Quit coming up with excuses that I can read through. Keep calling.”

She hangs up on him before he can say goodbye and he laughs to himself and sips some more coffee, propping his head up to watch Steve walking up out of the ocean, huge wide grin on his face and water dripping down his body, red board shorts clinging to him like a second skin. This is what he’d had in mind with this entire trip, just this, that smile. That look on Steve’s face.

Steve ignores the towel, doesn’t bother to dry off at all, and walks up to him on the hammock. He grins down at him, and shakes himself like a dog, water spraying off of him and onto Danny and Danny just laughs up at him, easy and carefree like he hasn’t been in way too fucking long. He’s still laughing when Steve inserts himself on the hammock next to Danny, pressing wet legs against Danny’s bare ones beyond his shorts, wet hips against Danny’s, wet torso soaking his shirt on Danny’s left side.

“Oh, come on, seriously,” Danny squawks, trying to sound annoyed beyond the laughter, holding his coffee aloft to avoid it spilling. “I’m all wet now!”

“I wish you found the peace in the ocean I do, Danny,” Steve says, and his voice sounds dreamy, like he’s been meditating, and yeah. Pretty much, Danny thinks. Danny thinks swimming miles and miles in the morning pretty much is meditating for Steve. “I’d give anything to find something that did this for you.”

“Your face does, babe,” Danny says, and then blinks because well. “That sounds bad.”

Steve looks over at him, his hands resting on his stomach. “My face?”

Danny busies himself with staring into his coffee cup, lifting it to drain the last bit. “What I’m saying is the look on your face, Steve. That pure bliss. It’s kind of blinding, man. I’m saying it’s contagious.” He finally looks over at Steve’s goofy ass face, grinning over at him, and smiles back. “Shut up.”

“Turn over,” Steve says, reaching over to set the coffee mug on the ground before putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder and pushing him over to his side, sliding up behind him. Danny frowns as Steve’s knee bends and inserts itself between Danny’s legs, Steve’s arm draping over Danny’s waist and pulling him closer into Steve’s space. “Your face too, okay?”

Finding it hard to breathe Danny blinks a few times, glad that Steve can’t see his face right now. They’re touching from top to bottom and Steve is naked chested and warm and Danny kind of feels like somehow this is exactly everything he wanted without ever even knowing it. “Steve.”

“Don’t,” Steve says against his neck, soft and low, close enough that Danny can feel his lips moving against his skin. “You got all stiff, Danny, stop it. Can’t we just. Ya know?”

“Steve this isn’t.” Danny frowns, chews on his lip, tries to figure out what he’s wanting to say. “I’m not used to sharing space quite this close with someone that’s not a woman.”

“I’m not either, Danny, but I just find your presence comforting, and I’m fucking tired of being appropriate and I just want to do what feels right, okay? I’m tired of not doing shit because I‘m not supposed to want to.” A huff of air on the back of Danny’s neck makes him close his eyes. “If you’re uncomfortable and want to get up, I understand.”

“Listen, I find your presence comforting too, okay?” Danny covers Steve’s hand on his stomach with his own, and says fuck it. Winds their fingers together and brings his hand up to his chest, over his heart. It feels right in ways he refuses to think about yet. “It’s just. From the day I met you you’ve been coming into my life and fucking up my world view, and I just. I need time to adjust okay?”

“Lets just…” Steve tightens his hold on Danny, pulls him up tight against him and there is no part of Danny that’s not touching Steve, leaning into him from head to toe. “Be, okay? Can’t we just _be_ here?”

Danny breathes out slowly. “I’m being, babe.”

And he is, he’s trying to be. He’s taking deep breaths and settling himself, relaxing himself one muscle at a time. Stroking his thumb across the side of Steve’s hand absently like somehow it’s second nature instead of incredibly fucking intimate and not something they’ve ever done.

They fall asleep like that and sleep for hours.

+

Danny wakes up slow and lazy and happy, relaxed and rested in ways he hasn’t felt in weeks. Months even. He stretches and presses back into the warm body behind him before he remembers it’s Steve. He startles forward but Steve’s arm holds him there.

“M’fell asleep,” Danny mumbles, settling back down. The hammock sways gently underneath them, and it’s a good thing Steve had held him down because if he’d scrambled off the way he’d almost done they both woulda pitched into the grass beneath them.

“Mm,” Steve mumbles against his shoulder, forehead pressed to Danny’s neck. “Me too.”

It’s too perfect, and Danny doesn’t know what to do with himself. He wants to get up, get away from this, find some steady ground and just breathe and shake the sleep-fog from his brain, come back to reality where things make sense. He also wants to close his eyes again and just go back to sleep in Steve’s arms. He feels so conflicted and Steve’s fingers are drawing circles on his stomach and making his stomach churn with something that’s way too close to what he feels when Melissa undresses for him and he can feel it curling in his toes.

The thing he can’t do, though, the thing he _won’t_ do, is take the happiness he can feel radiating off of Steve in waves away from him.   Sleepy, content Steve, pressing his leg between Danny’s legs and softly mumbling about the benefits of cat naps behind him. He refuses to move and take that away from him.

“Hey, Danny,” Steve says a few moments later.

Danny swallows. “Yeah.”

“Last night you said…” Steve’s breath ghosts out over Danny’s neck and Danny has to take a deep breath because he just feels like he still can’t breathe properly. “You said you and Rachel would have worked that second time. But you didn’t leave.”

Danny closes his eyes and sighs. “Yeah.”

“Because of me,” Steve asks, but it’s not a question. “Because I was in jail.”

“I couldn’t just leave you.”

“So you’re saying I’m why you’re not happy,” Steve says, and his grip tightens on Danny’s torso. “Because, see, Danny, if you’d left, you and Rachel would have worked. And Charlie would’ve been yours all along man. So what it boils down to is I cost you everything, Danny. All of it. It’s my--”

“Stop,” Danny says, leaning back to interrupt Steve, trying to turn enough to see his face. “No. You didn’t. I did, Steve. I made my own decisions.”

“Danny.”

“I wouldn’t do it any fucking different, do you understand me?” He turns onto his back and reaches down to hold Steve’s arm in place across his stomach. He looks into Steve’s eyes and wills him to listen. “Even knowing, okay? Knowing what happens, knowing all of it, man. I would still stay. I couldn’t leave you like that. I couldn’t just.” He huffs out a breath and looks up at the sky, unable to take the raw emotion in Steve’s stormy grey/blue eyes. “I had to stay. It was the right thing to do, it was the _only_ thing to do, and the fact that she didn’t see that Steve? That she didn’t get that? The fact that she punished me for it? That’s just proof, babe. It’s proof that we don’t belong together.”

“You mean there’s no part of you that hates me for it? That regrets?”

“No part,” Danny whispers past the lump that’s inserted itself in his throat. Can’t define it, can’t put words to it, and doesn’t want to. Just closes his eyes and feels Steve’s forehead pressed to the side of his head. “Zero parts, Steve. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

“Danny.”

“Listen,” Danny says, gripping Steve’s hand in his. “You don’t get it okay? You made my life not miserable anymore, do you get that?” He turns his head to look at him. “When I met you I was the most miserable sack of shit on this island. I was angry, and bitter, and pissed at everything and everyone. I had one ray of sunshine in Grace, but that was it, Steve, that was all.” He blows out a breath and shakes his head. “I hated Rachel, and Stan, and I fucking hated my job because I was the haole detective nobody trusted or accepted or liked and Meka was great, he was, but… You gave me back a place in my life where I felt fucking worth something again.”

Steve’s arm tightened. “Danny.”

“And you gave me someone to go get beers with, and to take my mind off of all the fucking bullshit in my life, and you gave me a family again. You, and Kono, and Chin, you guys helped me carve out my own space in this place.” He shakes his head. “And I’m supposed to just leave that? I’m supposed to look the guy that did all those things for me in the eye and say hey, uh. You’re on your own.   Rot in jail for all I care, even though everyone is against you and everything we’ve built this past six months is falling apart, ya know, I can’t be bothered. I wanna go get my old life back-- that never fucking worked that well to begin with, by the way-- Sayonara?”

“Okay but you get that you did that for me, too, right Danny?”

Danny raises an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“My dad had just died, Danny,” Steve says gently. “And my best friend. Freddie had just, I mean just a few weeks before… And finding out my Mom’s accident wasn’t an accident, and the Champ box, and… Everything in my life was fucking turned upside down in a month’s time, nothing was the same, nothing was ever going to be the same ever again, but meeting you…” He closed his eyes and squeezed his hand in Danny’s. “It just. You made me remember what it was like to laugh again.”

“Wow,” Danny says, closing his eyes and rubbing his thumb rhythmically up and down their clasped hands. “We are just two fucked up pathetic sacks, aren’t we?”

Steve huffs a laugh against Danny’s shoulder, ruffling his hair. “Yeah, we kind of are.”

“Thank God we found each other, huh,” Danny says, and it’s a joke, it’s sarcasm, because he doesn’t believe in God or fate or karma or any of that, except for how he really fucking _means_ it.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers back against his skin. “I thank Him every day.”

And, the thing is, he’s pretty sure Steve really fucking means it too.

+

They finally extricate themselves from the hammock around noon, and Danny tells Steve there are Jetskis in the boat shed. He laughs at the child like grin that lights up Steve’s face, gesturing for Steve to follow him out to the shed.

Off they go full speed ahead, and of course Steve is doing figure eights around Danny, spraying water all over him and laughing uproariously at Danny’s indignant shouts.

“I swear to God, Steve,” Danny shouts over his laughter. “If you see an abandoned boat or a man in need of help if you so much as--”

“I hearby promise to you I will keep right on going,” Steve says, grinning goofily at him and swerving to a stop right in front of Danny, spraying him from head to toe with yet more water. Not that it makes Danny any more wet, he’s already soaked.

“Idiot.”

Steve’s grin only grows wider. “Hey Danno?”

Danny’s helpless but to grin just as big back at him. “Yes Steven?”

“Will you surf with me,” he asks, wagging his eyebrows and pointing out to where the sea is starting to show itself to be a bit choppier, less placid and more conducive to surfing. “Come on, brah, look how big that wave is man, the overhead on that is not even--”

“Oh, God, Steve, I am not Kono, you are not speaking my language anymore,” Danny says, rolling his eyes but turning around to head back in to grab the surfboards.

On the small beach he strips off his shirt, which yes is already soaking wet but it makes him feel weighed down, and watches Steve apply fresh wax to their boards. He walks over to the table and checks his phone. There’s a text from Chin asking ‘ _howzit_ ’ and one from Melissa checking in as well. He replies to Chin but doesn’t even click to read Melissa’s, pushing down the guilt and telling himself that he’d told her he may not be able to get to his phone much this weekend.

Steve’s watching him when he turns back around to head back over, looking apprehensive. “All good?”

“Yup,” Danny says, nodding and picking up the blue board that he for damn sure knew Steve had claimed as his. “Last one in’s a junkyard dog.”

“Hey, that’s the board I was gonna--” Steve shouts after him but Danny’s already plodding into the ocean and diving onto the board, paddling out before he hears splashes behind him signaling that Steve’s joined him. “Asshole!”

Danny wipes out the first two times he tries to stand but on the third he holds it the entire distance back to the shore and in the middle of the perfect barrel he curves a hand out to feel the wave, weaving the board back and forth and feeling like maybe, if it was always like this, he gets why surfing is as good as sex to some people.

Maybe. Kind of.

Steve sits on his board, grinning when Danny paddles back up to him. “Was that your first barrel?”

“I don’t know,” Danny says, frowning and looking back towards the shore. “Is that what it means when the wave swallows around you like that?”

Steve laughs. “It’s amazing right?”

“In a scary, death defying kind of way,” Danny says, shrugging.

“You fucking loved it,” Steve teases, reaching over to swat Danny’s shoulder. “You think I was epic and you know it.”

“It was maybe not that terrible,” Danny says, but his grin betrays him and Steve throwing his head back to cackle into the sun is worth every second of it.

Steve catches the next wave and Danny sits there on his board, legs dangling in the water and his shoulders completely loose with lack of tension, and watches the pure raw athleticism and gorgeousness that is Steve McGarrett on a wave.

Yeah, he thinks. This he could definitely see the appeal of.

Not that he will ever, _ever_ , admit to it.

+

“Oh. My god.”

Danny laughs, looking over at Steve’s horrified face. “Creepy right? They say the kid lost it after filming, but that’s one of those urban legends I think.”

“I’ve always heard people say redrum in that creepy way but it just always seemed stupid and weird to me,” Steve says, shuddering slightly and hugging his arms to himself. “But that shit was… Wow.”

Watching the Shining was so exactly what they needed to be doing right now, Danny thought to himself, tossing popcorn into his mouth. So what if it was three in the afternoon and they were being lazy fucks sitting in the dark in front of the television. Wasn’t this what vacation was?

“I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m just gonna bash your brains in,” Steve echoes, laughing. “I’m gonna use that in interrogation, just wait and see.”

The best part was when Steve freaked out hard at the twins asking little Danny to come play with them while he was riding his tricycle. “No, Danny, no, how the fuck can you laugh at that scene, they… blood! There was… and creepy, and twins, and you have a daughter!”

“Grace loves The Shining,” Danny says, and snorts at Steve’s horrified look.

“Never ever,” Steve says to him as Jack types and types and types on the typewriter, “ever say all work and no play makes Steve a dull boy to me again.”

Danny chokes on the popcorn.

“And this, my friend,” Danny says at the end of the movie, in the maize, pointing at Jack Nicholson on the screen with his wild hair and crazy eyes, “is why Jack Nicholson is a fucking legend.”

Steve hugs his arms to himself harder and shivers again, and Danny laughs and laughs.

“Fuck your Chucky movies, _this_ is horror, Steven.”

+

Danny doesn’t actually make it into a shower until just before dinner and when he walks out of the shower he hears Steve on the phone and listens idly as he gets dressed.

“Well yeah. Course we can. Anytime honey.”

Honey, Danny thinks. Just who exactly is Steve calling honey these days? Surely not Tiffany.

“Oh hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’d like to go hiking? I’d like to take you up to the petroglyphs,” Steve says, and Danny feels a huge painful stab of jealousy. Because they’d just talked about this. Their first date. About how Steve didn’t take anyone to see the petroglyphs. “Yeah, I’d love to take you up there just us.”

There’s a low chuckle and such a deep affection in Steve’s voice that Danny finds himself folding his hands into fists at his side even as he tells himself that he’s being absolutely ridiculous. “Nah, Danny won’t wanna go, he’s already been. We can ask him but the last time he bitched the whole time, you know how your Dad is about physical exercise.”

And oh. Oh wow. Danny freezes and his heart stutters in his chest. The love and affection in Steve’s voice, the soft way he was speaking, it all made so much sense now, and it bowled Danny over. Because he knew Steve loved Grace, he knew that. But that they talked this easily without Danny there, that he didn’t know.

“But yeah, we can go over your chemistry anytime after we get back, okay sweetie? And don’t ever hesitate to call me again, okay? I’ll drop anything if you ever need me to okay? Incuding any plans I have with Danno.”

Danny comes out and leans in the doorway, watching Steve grinning into the phone and nodding, and there’s a part of him that’s so fucking moved he thinks he may just cry. Instead he grins and quietly slips back into the hallway and goes back to his room to finish combing his hair.

Before heading back out to eat pizza with Steve he picks up his phone and texts Grace.

 _Love you more than words, baby_ he says.

She texts back in seconds. _To the moon and back, Danno._

+

“Excuse me,” Danny says, reaching up and waving in front of a pretty redhead’s face. “Hi, excuse me.”

Steve laughs. “Danny.”

“Could you settle a bet for us, please,” Danny asks, grinning up at her. She grins back. “Here,” he says, kicking out a chair. “Sit. Please.”

Steve reaches out his hand. “Steve.”

The redhead grins and sits, taking Steve’s hand. “Bryce.”

Danny holds out a hand and when she transfers her hand to his he brings it to his lips and kisses it, winking at Steve over it like _‘You see? That’s how you do it.’_ Steve rolls his eyes. “Danny.”

“Nice to meet you, Danny and Steve.”

“So. The settling of a bet,” Danny says, leaning forward and propping his elbows on the table, taking a large sip of his margarita. His third of the evening.

Steve snorts. “Is it a bet if there’s no money on the line? Because I’m pretty sure this is just a disagreement.” He leans in closer to Bryce. “He gets confused sometimes. Not that bright.”

She laughs. “I actually do think he’s right, betting usually does imply money’s been wagered.”

Danny raises an eyebrow. “Alright,” he says, digging in his ass pocket for his wallet and slapping it on the table. “What, $50 the lady agrees with me?”

Steve shakes his head. “$100.”

“Wow,” Danny says, the other eyebrow raising to meet its twin, grin widening. “Someone’s pretty cocksure of themselves!”

Steve shrugs. “You in or out?”

Danny opens his wallet and puts a crisp clean one hundred on the table. “Oh, I’m so in.”

Steve reaches into his back pocket and counts out five twenties. “Go.”

Danny reaches over and counts them, looking suspiciously at Steve. “Scuse me,” he says, leaning into Bryce’s shoulder. “Do you happen to have one of those pens where you can test whether or not a bill is counterfeit? You see, he’s just not good with parting with his money usually so I’m a bit suspicious at how easily he laid this down.”

“Could you please explain to my partner that when I win this bet,” Steve says, leaning into her other side, “and that’s right, I said when not if, when I win, it will be easy to understand why I so easily made this bet.”

“Partner,” she asks.

“We’re in law enforcement,” Danny says, smiling and winking at her.

“Why do you always say it like that,” Steve asks, rolling his eyes as he leans back in his chair. His knees bump into Danny’s. “Law enforcement. Just say we’re cops.”

“Well, first,” Danny says, twirling a finger at him, “you’re not a cop, and second, law enforcement has a certain… je ne sais pas.” He waves his fingers in the air. “A certain flair, non,” he asks Bryce.

She giggles and nods. “Oui.”

“Now he speaks French,” Steve says, cocking his head to the side as he crosses his arms.

“Just a little,” Danny says with a wink. “Now. The bet.”

“The bet,” Steve says.

“The bet is,” Danny says, leaning in at the same time Steve does. “Who is more charming? Me? Or stretch over there?”

Bryce giggles again. “What?”

“In the next five minutes,” Danny says, laying a hand on top of hers, “he and I are going to compete over who is the more charming. Obviously it’s me, because I have the best eyes.”

“Ass,” Steve asks.

“Eyes, Steven,” Danny says, pointing two fingers at his sparkly blues. “Up top, partner.”

“It is a nice ass though,” Steve says, wagging his eyebrows.

“I’m not arguing,” Danny says, looking at Bryce. “I do squats.”

She laughs again, biting her lip.

He grins at Steve. “I’ve already won, you putz. Give up now.”

“So tell me, Bryce,” Steve says, stretching his arm around the back of Bryce’s chair and meeting her eyes. “Do you live here or are you vacationing?”

“I didn’t say who had more sex appeal, I said more charming,” Danny says, picking Steve’s hand up off the back of the chair. Steve simply puts it back. “There’s a distinct difference.”

Steve bumps his knee against Danny’s. “So you’re admitting I’m sexier then.”

Danny waves a hand. “Yeah, fine, you ooze sex, okay, you exude it, there are people a town over than can feel your sex appeal, there are people on the _mainland,_ ” he says, waiving his hands around. “But this is why I win the charming bet, Steven, because you’re so damn pretty you don’t have to try. I on the other hand, have had to hone my craft. I’m saying, I’ve got game, son. I’ve got skills.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bryce says, fluttering her eyelashes at him a few times. “I think you’re kinda sexy.”

Danny grins wider and slings an arm around her, his fingers brushing over Steve’s forearm. “You see? Already working.”

“Game, huh,” Steve asks, lowering his voice and leaning in closer. “Maybe I don’t need game. Maybe my no game _is_ my game, maybe my skill is just fucking _existing_.”

“Cocky much,” Danny asks, and looks at Bryce. “Is that hot or is that cocky?”

“Both,” she says, grinning over at Steve. “Confidence is sexy.”

“Oh, confidence I got,” Danny says, nodding and spreading his hands wide. “Confidence I am not lacking in.”

“He’s right, he’s not lacking in confidence,” Steve says, pointing at him and grinning at Bryce. “He is super, super confident. Some may say delusionally so, but who am I to pass judgment?”

Danny smiles sweetly. “The only delusional person at this table is you, thinking you’ve got more charm in your entire body than I do in my pinky, pal.”

“Okay,” Steve says, laughing and putting an elbow on the table. “Okay you wanna go toe to toe? You wanna match skillsets? Arm wrestle me.”

“Arm wrestle,” Danny says, laughing and looking at Bryce. “Is he from the 50’s?”

She leans over and feels Danny’s arm. Reaching her other arm over she feels Steve’s. “I don’t know what decade we’re in, but I’m curious I’ll admit.”

Danny glares at Steve. “You wanna go?”

“I do.”

“You wanna go, I’ll go, we can go, let’s go,” Danny says, and rolls up his sleeve, planting his elbow on the table.

“You gonna talk all night or you wanna actually go,” Steve asks, slapping his hand into Danny’s.

“Listen babe, you may be a freakin’ ninja super SEAL, but I’ve done my share of weight lifting and broken a few noses in bar fights, this is so my wheelhouse.”

Steve laughs and looks at Bryce. “You gonna watch him and make sure he doesn’t cheat? Be our referee?”

“Oh, babe, I don’t need to cheat,” Danny says, gripping Steve’s hand tightly. “You’ve got height on me in a fight, that much I won’t deny, but like this we’re pretty even.”

“Okay,” Bryce says, putting her hands on top of theirs. “Count of three. One, two… go!”

Danny grins as they start, and Steve grins right back. Neither of their hands move much at all because like Danny said, they’re pretty even in the arm department.  For a moment as they meet eyes the only thing that exists in the world is them and it makes Danny’s head spin and he thinks to himself that ‘wanna go’ was maybe the wrong way to say this, because it’s putting ideas in his head and making his dick stir in his pants.

“Hey,” Steve says suddenly. “Handsy, that’s not fair.”

Bryce giggles and shrugs. “Hey, I was getting bored, wanted to see who was easier to distract.”

Which is when it dawns on Danny that there’s a hand on his thigh and this is twice in two nights that a woman has touched both himself and Steve at the same time, and just like that he goes from vaguely hard to a sudden rush of blood to his dick.

“Distract all you want, dollface,” he says, grinning at Steve. “Still gonna take this chump down.” Because Danny can shit talk with the best of them, even if he is finding it difficult to concentrate.

“Chump,” Steve says, his knee pressing harder into Danny’s under the table. “Oh, you’re going down.”

He watches Steve lick his lips and Danny’s arm starts to shake just slightly and he almost gives in and lets Steve win because he kind of just wants to close his eyes and ride whatever the hell this feeling was out because he’s drunk and hard and confused.

“So, whoever wins,” Bryce says, breathy and low, eyes flickering between the both of them. “Does that mean you’re gonna take me home?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Danny says, licking his lips again but still staring Steve down. “That what you want?”

“What I want, actually,” she says, “is for both of you to stop and both take me home. Everybody wins.”

Danny shuts his eyes briefly until Steve breaks the silence. “That’s twice this weekend a woman’s wanted a threesome with us, Danny, what do you think that means?”

Steve’s foot bumps into Danny’s and makes him jerk back to himself.   “Means I’m out,” Danny says suddenly, stopping the pressure and letting Steve slam his hand against the table. It also means I’m a terrible fucking boyfriend, he thinks afterwards. “Not that I’m not flattered, but I’m not by nature a sharer,” he says, and stands. “You got the keys, Steven.”

He doesn’t bother to look back as he heads out of the bar, barely able to see straight as he pulls out his phone. He starts to dial the same taxi company as he had the night before but spins around when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Get in the car,” Steve says, not looking at him and walking towards the Camaro.

Danny frowns at him. “Steve?”

“Come on,” Steve says, opening the driver’s side door and sliding in. “Get in.”

“What the hell are you doing,” Danny asks, spluttering as he walks over to the passenger side door. “You don’t have to worry about me, Steve, I’m fine taking a cab home. Seriously.”

“Shut up and buckle your seatbelt,” Steve says, fingers tight on the wheel.

Danny’s so hard his hands are shaking with the need to jerk off and come already. Wants to go find that same alcove as the night before and just get it over with so his brain can start functioning, but Steve’s posture is straight and rigid and doesn’t leave much room at all for argument.

“You pissed? I didn’t expect you to come with me.”

“No, just, please,” Steve says, voice a little strangled. “Just let’s go, okay?”

“I’m just saying,” Danny says, sorting through the keys to pull out the right one as they walk up to the door of the house five minutes later. “I don’t get you.”

“Just open the door, Danny,” Steve says, standing behind him. Danny’s hair prickles at the back of his neck as he realizes how close Steve is standing when his breath ghosts over it. “I don’t want to do this outside.”

“Do what,” Danny asks, finally shoving the right key in the doorknob, ignoring the way his hands shake. “Explain to me when exactly you became a moron? You’re effectively giving yourself blueballs. That girl was _in_ , Steve. Bryce was--”

“Not who I wanted,” Steve says, reaching forward to twist the knob open as Danny turns the key, shoving Danny inside.

Danny laughs at being shoved, stumbling a bit and turning to watch Steve kick the door shut behind him. “Then who--” His laugh dies off at the dark look in Steve’s eyes and the positively feral way he walks towards Danny, like he’s stalking prey. “Who— uh, who did you want?”

“You,” Steve says, and slams Danny’s back against the wall, crowding into him and pressing against him, pushing a leg between Danny’s and his thigh pressing against Danny’s dick. Danny’s hard, throbbing dick, that was taking far more interest in this conversation than he’d realized judging how utterly and completely happy it was to be pressed up against Steve. He chokes off a groan and then his mouth is covered by Steve’s, Steve’s fingers digging into his biceps and his lips soft and pliant but insistent and unforgiving.

“Wha--” Danny gets out when Steve pulls back for breath.

“I didn’t want Bryce tonight, and I didn’t want Tiffany last night,” Steve says, looking into Danny’s eyes and stealing his ability to think straight and breathe properly at all. “And the longer I think about it-- and I have been, Danny, I’ve been thinking about it a lot-- the longer I think about it the more I realize it was never Alissa I wanted that weekend either.”

Danny closes his eyes and thunks his head against the wall behind him, biting his lip and trying so very very hard to not press his dick harder into Steve’s thigh. “Steve what are you--”

“I’m fucking your world view up again aren’t I,” Steve asks, and presses his leg harder into Danny’s dick until Danny has to open his eyes to ground himself in something over than the sensation of that so he won’t start rutting against it like a fucking animal. Steve’s voice is low and he’s grinning at Danny in a way that makes Danny have to bite his lip to keep from moaning again.

“Fucking it all up, Steven, up down and sideways and back again, yes,” Danny says, barely able to make the words audible through how hoarse his voice feels, his hands flailing and not knowing where to land.

Steve’s smile widens. “In a good way though, right? In a way you don’t want me to stop doing?”

Danny shakes his head, closing his eyes again. “I don’t know, you’re not giving me time to adjust, Steven.”

“I don’t think I want to stop,” Steve whispers against Danny’s mouth, kissing him lightly, just barely any pressure at all, and Danny _aches_ and trembles from it. “Do you want me to stop? Because I don’t think you want me to stop, Danny. That’s not a roll of quarters in your pocket. You’re hard.”

“You think I don’t know that,” Danny growls, “What the hell are you doing?”

“I told you, Danny,” Steve says, and this time he’s not flirting, he’s not lowering his voice out of anything other than stone cold soberness, and Danny opens his eyes to look at him. “I’m tired of not having the things I want just because I’m not supposed to want them. If I can’t have you because this isn’t what you want, then so be it,” Steve says, gesturing between himself and Danny. “It is what it is. But it’s not gonna be because I’m not supposed to want this, it’s not gonna be because it’s not appropriate and not what men do and not who I’m supposed to be.”

Danny feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him and he reaches up to grasp Steve’s arms. “Hey.”

“You’re right,” Steve says, and then he steps back and Danny sways forward with him, trying to grab hold of him and pull him back. Steve doesn’t let him. “I need to give you time to adjust.”

“Steve.” Danny watches Steve look down and away, holding his hands out of Danny’s reach. “Steven!”

“If you want this you know where I am,” Steve says, backing up and finally looking at him when he’s across the room.   “Otherwise we’ll go back to what we’ve always been okay? Because I can’t lose that too.”

“Hey,” Danny tries again, but Steve turns to leave the room. “God damnit, Steve!”

Steve pauses in the doorway but doesn’t turn to look at him. “Just think about it, Danno.”

                                                                   

+

Danny barely even blinks when Steve sits next to him on the couch. “Have you been staring at the tv with the sound off in the dark this whole time?”

Danny nods, looking at the time. “Wow, when did it get to be 2am?”

“One minute after 1:59am,” Steve says softly. “Danny, it’s been three hours.” Danny can feel his gaze on the side of his head. “You okay?”

Danny shrugs, clutching his fingers around the bottle of whiskey he’s drunk about a third of. “Do you know what a panic attack is? I know what a panic attack is. It’s been a few years since I had one that wasn't related to clausterphobia, but I’m having one now. The walls are closing in and it hurts to breathe. My heart is in my throat and I… I just can’t breathe.”

He turns to look at Steve and studies the miserable line of his mouth, the sadness in his eyes, the worryline on his brow. He looks older somehow. Or maybe that’s not it. Maybe it’s just that he’s looked younger the past few days, here. Happy and carefree, here, with Danny.

“Aren’t you scared,” Danny asks softly. “At all?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, looking away and folding his arms over his chest. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Steve looks back at him. “God, are you kidding me, Danny? Of course I’m scared.”

“Then why did you do that,” Danny asks, cutting his hand through the air in a chopping motion. “Why did you kiss me?”

“Look I’m sorry,” Steve says, holding his hands out and looking at Danny in a way that looks like begging. “I didn’t mean to upset… I hate that I gave you a panic attack.”

“I want you,” Danny says, looking back at the tv screen, old black and white I Love Lucy running silent. “I want you so bad I can’t even…” He holds out a hand, showing Steve how it shakes. “Do you see this? This is you, Steve. This is how much I want you, and how utterly fucking terrified I am of what that means. I don’t even know when it started. I’ve never. Any time I started to admit it to myself I could feel the edges of a panic attack and I just shut it off.”

“Danny, please, I said I’m sorry--”

But Danny shakes his head, holds up his hand in a silent plea for Steve to stop. “Besides Grace you’re the only consistently good thing in my life that I’ve had since my life turned upside down and I moved here. I told you! I told you how I work, Steve, I envision the worst case scenario, okay.” He looks at Steve and shakes his head, finds it so hard to meet his eyes but forces himself to. “And for me, that’s us ending and me being hit by a fucking freight train because I lose you, my job, and everything that makes Hawaii fucking home for me now, Steven. So I ask you, doesn’t this even terrify you a little bit?”

“Danny,” Steve says, squeezing his eyes shut. “No matter what happened between us you will _always_ be Five O.”

“No,” Danny says, shaking his head. “No. I won’t. Do you get that?” He brings a knee up on the couch between them. “I love you. I love you so much I can’t think straight sometimes, and do _not_ even think about making a fucking crack at that,” he says, and Steve just smiles and looks up at him. “I love you so much I make stupid decisions _anyway_. And that’s just the love one has for family, for best friend, for brother. Me to you. That’s just. Regular _love_ , without this next level shit.” He blows out a breath and tries to remember how to inhale. “You really think if we do this, and it crashes and burns, you really think I can come in to work day to day and see your face and it won’t fucking kill me?”

Steve shakes his head. “But see, _you_ don’t get it.”

“What,” Danny yells, throwing his hands up. “What don’t I get?”

“I already fucking feel that,” Steve yells back. “This isn’t new to me, this isn’t some new thing where I’m like oh, hey, Danny’s kinda fucking sexy, maybe I want some of that.”

Danny feels his mouth quirk up just slightly. “Want some of that?”

“Just. Shut up,” Steve says, holding up a hand. “You complain about me not talking? I’m talking.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ve wanted this for years,” Steve says, folding his arms over his chest again. “I walk into the office and see your face and want you every damn day.”

Danny closes his eyes. “Steve.”

“So for me, I love you Danny? But I also love you, get it?” He laughs and shrugs. “I can’t separate it. Person to person, me to you, regular love is the same thing as the kind of love where you say something small and stupid and it makes me want to fall down on my knees and beg for you to never leave me, because I don’t think I can get up day to day without you in my life. It’s the same, Danny.”

Danny’s throat is closed but it’s not with panic and he blinks furiously trying to keep tears in. “Steve.”

“Yeah, so. I know I fuck your world view up and I’m supposed to give you time to adjust, but just, fuck man,” Steve says, throwing is hands out. “I don’t know how to go by halves. I can accept you not wanting this, I can accept us not being more than what we are now, and it’ll hurt, but I can do it. I cannot accept you leaving.”

“I’m not leaving,” Danny says quietly.

“But does this scare me? Hell yes.” Steve nods. “But see the thing is, Danny?”

“What,” Danny asks.

“The amount of terror, the amount of oh holy shit I can’t do this, that just says to me, ya know.” Steve gestures and laughs slightly. “How worth it it is.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, nodding, feeling like he’s on a roller coaster at the precipice of going over that first big drop. “Could you just, please, not hate me for not having the faith you do? Can you allow me to freak out sometimes and worry? Can you be okay with me working through my shit and not hold it against me?”

Steve smiles at him. “Danny, not only am I okay with it, I’m expecting it. You do get that I know you right? We’ve met before.”

Danny nods, swallowing. “Okay.”

“And just by the way, we’ve both got plenty of baggage to go around,” Steve says quietly, bumping his knee against Danny’s. “Thing is, your baggage is my baggage and my baggage is your baggage already. So it’s not new either.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, nodding. He blows out a breath. “Okay, I’m saying. I’m saying okay.”

“No,” Steve says, shaking his head and looking away. “No, I want you sober and sure,” he says, standing. “Just. Not tonight.”

Danny stands and puts a hand on Steve’s chest, fingers curling into his shirt. “Steve I’ve made my choice. I’m saying yes.”

Steve reaches up and clasps his hands on Danny’s shoulders, running them down Danny’s arms. “Then there’s no reason to rush it, is there.”

Danny closes his eyes, pulling on Steve’s shirt until he’s right up against him and then pulling him into a hug. “I’m a nightmare, Steve. I’m a fucking mess.”

“Shut up,” Steve says into his neck, pulling back to kiss him softly on the lips. “Get some sleep, huh?”


	3. Day 3:  Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walking into the kitchen he blinks at Steve’s back and remembers a half gone bottle of whiskey, the press of Steve’s leg against his dick, and a panic attack seizing up his chest for the better part of four hours.

Danny wakes up fully clothed, one shoe and sock off and one shoe and sock still on, with the comforter tossed onto the floor and his arm dead ass asleep from having been pinned under him. He opens his eyes to bright bright sun streaming in from the window and immediately groans, slinging his dead arm over his eyes to shield them and tasting nasty ass whiskey saliva collecting in his mouth. He kicks off his remaining shoe and sock.

He blinks slowly until the light doesn’t hurt his eyes quite so bad and swings his feet over the bed to sit up, blinking blearily at the clock. 10:30am. On a Monday. Well. That’s fucking late as crap, even for a scheduled vacation day.

He squints down at his phone and sees three missed texts from Melissa. They say:

  * _Are you okay?_
  * _I think we need to talk_



and

  * _I’m not mad._



That’s not good, he should probably call her. Probably needs to apologize for whatever it is he did. Instead he leaves his phone face down on the bed and leaves the room to head to the bathroom.

He pees, splashes cold water on his face, and downs three Advils from the medicine cabinet. He again does not brush his teeth because the thought of toothpaste coffee makes his stomach roll and he doesn’t need any help in that department thank you very much.

Walking into the kitchen he blinks at Steve’s back and remembers a half gone bottle of whiskey, the press of Steve’s leg against his dick, and a panic attack seizing up his chest for the better part of four hours.

“Fucking hell, my head hurts,” he grunts as a greeting.

Steve turns around, coffee in hand and spatula in the other. He frowns at him. “Well.   You look like shit, so that makes sense.”

Danny snorts, walking over to the table, pulling the chair out with a scrape, and falling face first onto the top of the table into his folded arms. “Feel like it too. Remind me whiskey benders are for people in their twenties.”

“Or just for people who haven’t also had three strong ass margaritas with umbrellas in them,” Steve says quietly, the sound of a plate being put down in front of Danny.

Danny smells maple syrup and gauges his stomach. Not a happy stomach, but not a terribly angry stomach either, so he chances a look. French toast, including powdered sugar, and positively drowned in syrup. There are sliced strawberries. “Where did the strawberries come from?”

“You slept late. I went for a run. There’s a farmers market, where I got the muffins from yesterday.”

Danny pops a slice of strawberry into his mouth and it’s tart and juicy and amazing. He picks up a fork and cuts a big hunk of French toast, shoveling it in his mouth. “Oh, that’s good,” he mutters around the bite, looking up at Steve as he deposits a mug of coffee next to Danny and settles in across from him with his own. “Really, really good.”

“Not the hardest thing in the world to make. Figured you could use something dense and heavy after last night.”

Steve sets to eating his own without saying anything else and Danny studies the top of his head, hair still damp from his swim most likely. He’s wearing soft blue cotton shirt with jeans that are nearly worn through in the knees.

Steve sniffs and swipes at his nose, wriggling it like it itches.   He chews a too big bite full of French toast and licks a dribble of maple syrup off his bottom lip, followed up by a loud smack of his lips.

“How the fuck can you be such a neanderthaal but still be the sexiest fucking man I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Danny says, his breath catching as he feels his mouth quirk on a smile.

Steve’s jaw clenches and his hands freeze, fork poised above his toast. “What?”

“You’re a Cro-Magnon man, you truly are.” Danny waits until Steve looks up at him and catches his eye. “This isn’t news to you, is it?”

“Don’t,” Steve says, sliding his eyes away as he mouth frowns. “Don’t make jokes.”

Danny sighs and sits back. “What?”

“Just don’t, okay? Not yet.” Steve holds up a hand and looks back down at his French toast. “You wanna forget last night, it’s forgotten, but don’t make jokes.”

“Steve, I said you were--”

“Fuck this, I’m gonna take a shower,” Steve says, shoving back from the table and tossing the napkin down on top of his half eaten breakfast.

“Steve--”

“Just stop,” Steve says, walking towards the hallway.

“God damn, and here I thought we were gonna be friends no matter what,” Danny says, shoving his plate away. “By the way, did you hear the part where I said you were sexy? Because you can’t possibly think that’s me wanting to forget last night, or are you stupid?”

Steve pauses in the doorway and looks over at him. “What do you remember?”

Danny frowns at him. “You kissed me. I panicked.”

Steve nods, walking back in Danny’s direction. “And?”

Danny swallows. “And I got drunk as fuck and tried to adjust.”

“So adjust already, shit, Danny, how long do you fucking need,” Steve asks angrily, flinging his hands up in the air. “Just. Don’t make light.”

Danny looks away, glares at his plate and stabs at the French toast and strawberry slices angrily.   “Let me ask you a question.”

Steve bumps a hip against the table, crossing his arms and staring down at Danny, mouth an angry line. “Shoot.”

Danny looks up at him and feels anger surge. “Last night, when I said yes, when I said I wanted you, when I said I wanted to do this, and you said no I want you sober and sure and then walked away from me,” he says, throwing his fork down in a clatter. “Did you mean it or are you pissed now because you wanted me to follow you to your room and let you fuck me? Cause see, stupid me, I took you at your word.”

“Wow,” Steve says, face twisting as he looks up and away. “Wow, that was really ugly, Danny.”

“Yeah, well I’m hung over as and trying to have a conversation with my best friend, but all he’s doing is jumping down my throat,” Danny says, gesturing. “So yeah. I can be a little ugly sometimes. That’s me, Steve.”

“Let me fuck you,” Steve echoes, mouth twisting in hurt. “That’s what. A joke?”

“No, I’m legitimately asking,” Danny yells. “What did you want? Because I thought you said there was no rush. I thought you said you wanted me to be sure. And I thought, you know. That it was amazing, how understanding you were being.   That you get that this isn’t easy for me,” Danny says, gesturing, pounding a fist into his chest. “That I’m having a fucking panic attack here and you’re being so amazing and it just makes me want you more, and I’m so thankful that you’re my best friend and that you’re giving me time… But this morning I wake up and you’re being a dick.” He laughs. “Because I said you were sexy.”

Steve shifts slightly, his arms uncrossing. “I thought you were doing a thing.”

Danny frowns. “A thing? What the hell thing would I have been doing?”

“That thing where you make light of shit, because it’s too heavy to actually deal with,” Steve says, swirling a finger in the air. “Where you make it a joke instead.”

“No, actually,” Danny says, forcing himself to take a deep breath and not yell. “I actually wasn’t, I was eating breakfast and was just so caught up on how good you looked and how much I wanted you that it kind of just fell out of my mouth. And then you wacked me upside the head for it.”

Steve sighs and sits on the table, reaching up to rub a hand over his face, looking lost and scared and like maybe he hadn’t slept much either, and just like that with that simple gesture, Danny’s over being pissed. “Danny.”

“Just shut up, huh,” Danny says softly, reaching over to grab Steve’s wrist. “We’re both on edge, I’m hung over, and I think we’re both overreacting. Go take your shower, I’ll eat breakfast, and we’ll just…” He shrugs. “We’ll pick back up later.”

Steve covers Danny’s hand with his and sighs. “Sorry.”

“Just go shower,” Danny says, waving him off. “And then I’ll shower, and maybe we’ll. I don’t know. Go for another hike, have lunch at the waterfall.”

Steve smiles. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

+

Danny’s finally feeling human after his shower, four coffee’s deep and two helpings of French toast, and Steve is much less on edge when Danny comes back into the kitchen. He smiles at Danny and gestures to the backpack on the counter. “Sandwiches, chips, water,” he says. “Chicken salad sandwiches, you like that right?”

“I was gonna make lunch babe,” Danny says, combing through his hair. “You did breakfast, it was my turn.”

“I’m not.” Steve starts packing the food into the backpack. “Danny, I’m just not good at sitting here waiting. I gotta be doing something.”

“I’m not saying I’m mad,” Danny says, laughing and pulling on socks. “I was just. I meant I intended to.” He blows out a huff of air. “I love chicken salad, yes, that’s good. It’s fine.”

“I didn’t make it,” Steve says, grinning at him. “So don’t worry, I’m not poisoning you. I ran to the store while you were in the shower, I just assembled.”

“That’s a relief,” Danny says, laughing. “Salmonella, not something I want right now.”

Danny shoulders the backpack when they go, despite Steve saying he’ll take it. Steve is always taking the burden and Danny is always letting him and Danny thinks maybe that needs to stop.

“It’s not like it’s twenty pounds, Steve,” Danny says, grinning and swinging it onto his back. “Come on.”

They fall into step with each other on the trail and though the majority is travelled in silence it’s an easy silence, not the stress-filled jump-out-of-your-skin type silence that had plagued them this morning. It’s one o’clock by the time they reach the waterfall and Danny squats and unpacks the backpack, grinning at the blanket Steve had stuffed in there.

“Are we too delicate to sit in the sand?”

Steve grins and takes the blanket from him and pops it out, spreading it down on the ground. “Picnics have blankets, Danno. It’s in the rule book.”

Danny lets that wash over him as he sits down and feels any of the remaining tension drift away. Steve hasn’t said Danno all day, and even though it gets under Danny’s skin sometimes he’s also always loved it that Steve had stolen his nickname and appropriated it for himself. It’s an easy way to judge his mood, to judge how he’s feeling about Danny. Steve has never and will never say Danno if he’s honest to God pissed, and that’s how he knows they’ll be okay now.

“So,” Danny says, unwrapping his sandwich.

“So,” Steve says back, already chewing a mouthful.

“Are you constantly afraid that some animal is going to come by and steal your food,” Danny asks, glancing down at the huge bite in Steve’s sandwich. A third of it is gone already, in one bite. “Do you just think if you don’t eat something in thirty seconds flat the flies are going to come eat it?”

Steve snorts. “Okay, that’s a little bit about Mary, and a lot about the Navy,” he says, waving his hand. “Mary always used to regret whatever she ordered at a restaurant and would inevitably wind up stealing all of my food, so I had to learn to protect it.”

“And the Navy?”

“Well, the Navy was just all about efficiency, you didn’t eat for enjoyment you ate for fuel, and the quicker you shoved the shit down the quicker you’d be able to go back to the next part of your mission,” Steve says, crossing his legs and leaning back on his hands. Of course now, the sandwich is completely consumed.

Danny nods, licking a bit of mayonnaise off of his fingers. “Makes sense. I mean, you’ve actually relaxed a bit over the years from the leftovers of the Navy, but your eating habits have not. At all.”

“Relaxed,” Steve says, frowning at him. “Are you calling me soft?”

Danny laughs. “Easy there, Rambo, I’m saying you’ve become more like a human person and less the robot the Navy beat you into being.” Steve looks at him for a long moment and Danny feels utterly scrutinized. He feels the need to duck his head and look away, but Steve is still looking at him when he turns back. “Do I have a booger, what the hell are you looking at?”

Steve smiles slightly but it doesn’t entirely reach his eyes. “Hey, Danny?”

“Yeah babe?”

Steve sits forward and crosses his arms over his chest. “Why do you hate the military?”

“Why do I hate the…” Danny blinks and frowns, feeling thrown. “Where’d that come from?”

“The robot the Navy beat me into being… And every time we talk to the brass, every time we have a case that has to do with a soldier, you shit on it,” Steve says, just the vaguest hint of hurt underneath what Danny’s sure is meant to be a non-confrontational tone. “Nothing but insults, eye rolls. You do realize that I am what you’re shitting on right? I am military. It’s made me who I am. It is me.”

“No,” Danny says, shaking his head. “You made you who you are, you’re you, the individual person. Being a soldier, or sailor or whatever, is part of what made you, but it is not the only thing you are.”

“It sucks is all,” Steve says, getting a distant look in his eyes and looking away. “You hear all the shit talk all the time, people hate the war and they hate the military and they call us dumb and belittle us and throw beer bottles at us and ya know, I can take that most of the time, but coming from you, it really sucks, Danny.”

“I do not hate the military,” Danny says, grabbing his arm and tugging until Steve looks back at him. “Hey, I don’t.”

“Then why do you always look like you want to punch people when we have to talk to them,” Steve asks.

“Because we’re not talking to the soldiers, Steven, we’re talking to their commanders!” Danny’s hands fly wild. “And excuse me, but I’ve heard one too many times that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few!”

“Danny, that’s what we sign up to do,” Steve says, sighing and scrubbing a hand over his face. “We go to war to fight for--”

“Stop,” Danny says, grabbing his hand and prying it away from his face. “Just stop, listen to me. I know exactly what you risk, I know exactly what you’re fighting for, we do it every day,” Danny says, gesturing between himself and Steve. “Serve and protect, soldier, sailor, cop, I do not at all in any way hate military men.”

Steve shrugs and looks away again and Danny’s heart hurts. “It’s a little different, being a cop versus being in the forces, Danny.”

“Well yeah, I mean, you guys are fucking nuts,” Danny says, and is relieved when Steve snorts out a laugh at that. “But that’s not an insult Steve, it’s a fact. You’re nuts. You’re crazy. But it’s the kind of crazy I can respect, because of what’s behind it.”

“Then why--”

“Because you are not one of many,” Danny says, pointing at him, eyes flashing angrily. “You are not the sacrifice for the many, do you understand? You, you Steven, are not the fucking toy soldier that marches on and takes orders and dies and no one fucking goes back for because that would compromise some stupid fucking national secret and they deny your existence, but oh, it’s okay, that’s what you signed up for!” He jabs Steve in the chest again.

“Oh,” Steve says, looking down.

“Oh, he says,” Danny says, squeezing Steve’s wrist. “You’ve been holding this in all this time haven’t you?”

Steve shrugs. “Yeah,” he says, shrugging again. “I mean. I kind of feel like you separate me from them so I understand that you don’t mean me when you say things, but.” He waves a hand around. “At the same time, I feel like if you knew the things I’d done. Seen. The ops I’ve pulled in the dead of night.”

“Hey.”

“If you knew what I was, you’d hate me too,” Steve says, looking away. “You’d be scared of me, and you wouldn’t trust me any more, and you’d realize I was one of them and hate me too.”

“Wow,” Danny says, and feels it like a punch to his gut, like if he’d been standing he’d need to hit his knees. “Babe. That breaks my heart.”

Steve looks at him. “What?”

“First of all, I love you, I would never hate you. I would never not trust you. Steve, I trust you with my _daughter_ , I trust you with _Grace_ , and Grace is my life. And it breaks my heart you think you could ever do anything-- or could’ve ever done anything-- that would change that.” He sighs and reaches over to thread his fingers with Steve’s. “And second… I have nothing but respect for those that sign up to literally put their life on the line to protect their country. And I’m sorry I’ve made you feel otherwise. My anger, and I do have anger, I have a lot of anger about it, is the politics of the military. They say jump, you say how high. They say do it because I said so and you do and you can’t question.”

“But don’t you see why it has to be that way?”

“To a degree, but Steve, it’s not just.” Danny blows out through his nose. “I just, it fucking rankles, okay? It rankles me to my core that they ship them around like objects.” He looks Steve in the eye. “They ship _you_ around like objects. Numbers. Nameless, faceless _pieces._ Go here, say this, do this, and you don’t get a say so. And you can’t.” He throws out his hands, because he’s just doing such a piss poor job of explaining this, but at least Steve’s looking him in the eye. “I understand the need, and the concept, of needing an armed force to protect this country and all of our interests, but when I think of you being like a little domino out there on the field and you get knocked down and they just slide in the next fucking domino?” He shakes his head. “No. No, I’m not okay with that.”

“Okay,” he says, voice a little rough. Steve squeezes his hand and covers it with his other and smiles. This time it reaches his eyes. “All right, I get that.”

“You are Steve fucking McGarrett, the one, the only, beautifully singularly individually you, not a fucking faceless, nameless _tool_ to be used to complete a mission,” Danny says, and really, really _feels_ it. The anger and the panic and the loss he would feel if Steve ever got called back to the Navy. Because here he is Steve, and he has Danny and Kono and Chin and Lou and all of them would die for all of each other way before they would ever be even the slightest bit okay with letting anyone else die for them. “You’re Steve. _My_ Steve.”

“Hey,” Steve says, tugging on Danny’s hand a bit. “I said I get it. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry I’ve hurt you all these years,” Danny says, feeling like a fucking asshole. “I never did find the cure to foot in mouth disease after all these years, wish I did babe. How could you not tell me that?”

“Because I knew you never meant for it to hurt me,” Steve says with an easy shrug. “You would never mean for it to intentionally hurt me.”

“Is that why you chose Catherine,” Danny asks suddenly, not really even knowing he’s going to ask it until it’s out there.

Steve blinks in surprise. “What?”

“You said you’ve been wanting this for years,” Danny says, gesturing between the two of them. “But all this time, you’ve been with Catherine. I mean, you were going to propose to her. Is that why you chose her? Because she gets it?”

“Danny, how I feel about Cath is wholly and completely separate from how I feel about you,” Steve says with feeling. “It was never about choosing one over the other, I didn’t choose her over you.”

Danny looks away. “Okay.”

“That’s not what you’re asking,” Steve says, quietly. “You’re asking me if I love her more than you.”

Danny closes his eyes and squeezes his free hand into a fist. “Maybe, yeah. That’s not fair. I know that’s not fair. But she’s the easier choice. She’s. She’s the better choice.” He looks over at Steve. “Steve, I know you love her. I know she wrecked you last year, and then she wrecked you again this year. And you were going to ask her to marry you. What if she comes back? What if we give this a go, and we do this, and then she comes back?”

“I’m not going to rank you,” Steve says gently. “I’m not going to try and define who I love more and why, Danny, I can’t do that.”

“No,” Danny says, shaking his head. “No, that’s not fair. I’m not asking you to.”

“What if Rachel came back,” Steve asks then, tugging on Danny’s hand. “What if Rachel came to you and said she wanted you back, it’s over with Stan, and she still loves you. I know you still love her.”

Danny nods. “Always will, but. Maybe it would be a different story if she’d never lied about Charlie. She did though, and I will never, ever get over that. I will never, ever forgive that. She’s my past, period, end of sentence.”

“And maybe that’s what I’m saying too, Danny,” Steve says, looking at him. “I won’t ever not love Catherine, but I do think I’ve fallen _out of_ love with her.”

Danny looks at him and hates how vulnerable he feels in this moment but feels like he owes Steve that much honesty. At least that much, considering how much Steve’s given of himself. “You sure?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, meeting his eyes. “But what I do know is I would never choose her over you, Danny. Even if I’m not out of love with her, I’m so totally and completely in love with you that it doesn’t even matter how I feel about her.”

Danny gets up on his knees and even though it hurts his bad knee to crawl over to Steve he does it anyway because it would just take too fucking long to stand and do it. He puts his hands on either side of Steve’s face, bends forward, and kisses him. Gentle, and slow, he winds his tongue in his mouth and pours everything in him into the kiss until they’re both breathless and clutching at each other.

“I can’t say I won’t freak out,” Danny says, pulling back from the kiss. “I can’t say I won’t have panic attacks and I won’t get negative and I won’t have doomsday scenarios in my head, Steve.”

Steve smiles and cups Danny’s cheek. “I know that.”

“But I can say I want this,” he says, leaning in and kissing him again, soft yet firm. “I want it, all of it, every part of it.”

Steve grins up at him and it’s the most beautiful thing in the entire history of the world, Danny thinks, and it lights up his soul and sets everything in him free. He feels ridiculous, like a hallmark card, like all the stupid sappy romance novels Grace reads, all the bullshit he’s never ever believed in. Singing birds and butterflies and cartoon hearts dancing around their heads. It terrifies him.

“Let’s go back,” he breathes against Steve’s lips. “I want to go back to the house and do all the things I want to do to you in a bed, because a blanket is nice Steve but my knee kills and I need you to be fucking naked right now.”

“Wow, yeah, let’s,” Steve says and then jumps up and unceremoniously dumps Danny off of him to fall back to his ass on the ground. “Come on, let’s go, get off the blanket, I need to fold the blanket Danny, get off of it, get off blanket.”

Danny laughs as Steve tugs on the blanket under him. “Patience, babe, Jesus.” He grins up at him. “No need to rush.”

+

The hike back should have only taken about an hour, but Danny has this sneaking suspicion it may take more than that as Steve grabs him for the second time, shoves him up against the nearest tree, and plasters his mouth to his again.

“You are the most impatient motherfucker I’ve ever met,” he says with a grin, shoving Steve off after enjoying the kiss for everything it was worth. “Off. Over there. Personal space.”

Steve stops and looks at him, all of a sudden looking uncertain.

“What just happened there,” Danny asks, “your face did a thing.”

“I think you’re rubbing off on me,” Steve says, looking away and taking off the backpack just to secure it to his back again after rummaging through it for absolutely no reason.

“Uh, no, not yet, but I plan to,” Danny says, grinning and arching an eyebrow. Steve doesn’t smile back. “What’s up?”

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Steve says, shrugging. “I keep thinking we’re gonna get back and you’re gonna change your mind.”

“That’s not happening,” Danny says, his smile fading. “Hey, I mean it. It’s not happening.”

Steve blows out a breath and smiles quickly. “Yeah, okay, lets get back.”

“Hey,” Danny says, grabbing Steve’s wrist and stopping him. “Steve. I’m in, okay? I’m all the way in, I’m not towing the line, I’m not at the edge of the cliff, I’m in the water below it okay? I’m in.”

Steve searches his eyes for a good long thirty seconds before his posture finally relaxes and his smile turns real. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, yes,” Danny says, letting go of Steve’s hands. “But I do need to call Melissa first.”

Steve grimaces. “Really?”

Danny looks at him. “Babe, I can’t in good conscience go forward with you while I’m still, technically, with her.”

“Yeah, but…” Steve sighs, shaking his head. “Over the phone?”

“I know,” Danny says, feeling horrible guilt. “It’s horrible and if I were a stronger, better person I’d wait until we got home and break it to her easy over dinner or something. But I’m not. I don’t want to wait any longer with us, I’ve finally figured out what I want and I want it to fucking start already.”

Steve’s smile is equal parts touched, embarrassed, and turned on, and it makes Danny laugh. He lifts up on his toes and kisses Steve, a quick little nip of a kiss, and then swats Steve on the ass.

“Now come on, let’s go, the longer it takes to get back the longer we gotta wait!”

+

Danny lays down on the hammock and lifts up his phone, sees four missed texts. Kono, asking if they want to go to Sidestreet for dinner when they get back. Chin, asking the same.

There’s two from Melissa.

  * _I hope you know I only care that you’re happy._



and

  * _Please call._



Her texts make his skin prickle because they don’t sound like her normal hey how ya doing what’s going on texts, and he’d known that this morning. He scrolls further up in the texts but there’s nothing out of the ordinary before this mornings texts about needing to talk and asking if he was okay.

Then, he looks at his call log and sees a call to Melissa’s phone at 3:06 am last night… Or more accurately, this morning, and feels cold all over.

She answers on the second ring. “Hey, you called.”

“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t respond sooner,” he says, closing his eyes and wondering how the fuck he’s going to do this. “Did I call you last night?”

“No, you called me this morning, at three o’clock,” she says, laughing slightly. “You don’t remember do you?”

“Not at all,” he says. “Was it… What did I say?”

“You said surfing is awesome but that I shouldn’t tell anyone you said that because you would find me and haunt me,” she says, laughing in a way that made him have to laugh with her. “And you said that Grace was the best daughter in the whole world.”

Danny smiles. “She is.”

“And then you said that you were in love with Steve, and that you were sorry, and then I’m not really sure because you were pretty drunk and you sounded… Babe, you sounded pretty torn up about it.”

“Oh, wow,” Danny says, and reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose as panic washes over him. “Melissa, I’m so sorry I did that to you.”

“Hey, Danny, listen. Do you?”

He blinks and scrubs at his face. “Do I what?”

“Are you in love with him?”

And that instinct to not hurt, that instinct to protect her, surges up and tries to make him say no, it’s not true, it was nothing, don’t worry about it. Except for that makes him a liar, and he’s lied enough to her over the past few years, and shouldn’t that have been enough in and of itself to let him know they weren’t a good match.

“Yes.”

“And you don’t mean brother. You don’t mean family. You mean…”

“Yeah, I mean I’m in love with him, hon,” he says softly. “And I’m so sorry to do this to you. You deserve so much better, and I can’t believe I’m doing this to you over the phone. It’s okay if you hate me.”

“I’ve been expecting this,” she says, and then she laughs. “Well, okay, you know what? Not this. Not, ya know, this exactly but. Danny, you don’t love me. I think maybe you wanted to for a while, and maybe you would have if I’d been honest with you from the beginning about my ex. I think we didn’t really have much forward progression at all once you started calling me Melissa instead of Amber.”

“No, I understood why you didn’t tell me. And you didn’t owe me that anyway.”

“No, but I think it felt like a lie, Danny,” she says, and he can picture her face perfectly. Picture her eyes, the sad little twist down to her mouth.   “Felt like a lie to me too.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny says again.

“Stop apologizing, okay? Because I really enjoyed our time together, Danny. It was really, really great. And it reminded me that not every guy out there is like my ex, and I think I really just needed the security you’ve given me. It would have been great if there’d been more, but I think we’ve been drifting along not wanting to rock the boat for a while now.”

Danny closes his eyes and feels relief flood him. “I felt the same way,” he says finally. “Like we were just--”

“Keeping each other company. Maybe licking our wounds and healing.”

“You’re really great, you know that right,” he asks with a fond smile.

“So Steve huh,” she asks, and then laughs. “I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but is it mutual? I mean, have you told him?”

He grimaces again. “Uh, really? You really want to talk about this?”

“I just want you to be happy, Danny.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yes, it’s. Mutual.”

“Good,” she says warmly, and then, “Take care of yourself, huh?”

“You too,” he says.

+

He takes a few minutes to collect himself after hanging up and then heads inside, his insides twisting up and his heart tripping over itself when he sees Steve drinking a beer leaning against the couch and talking on the phone.

“Yeah, sounds good, I think we were gonna leave around 4 or so, so how does dinner at 7 sound?”

Steve in that sleeveless gray shirt, he’s worn it a thousand times, how had Danny missed how amazing he looked in it? His jeans hug his ass and his thighs and Danny is drawn to him like a moth to flame because he has to touch him. He has to. He steps up to Steve and inserts his hands inside his shirt, running his fingers up Steve’s spine and feeling the muscles bunch and move as Steve startles at his touch and then leans into it.

“Hang up,” he whispers into Steve’s shoulder, kissing the back of his arm. “If we’re leaving at four that only gives us an hour and a half.”

“You know what? How about I call once we’re on the road,” Steve says in a rush. “Danny’s got a… a thing, let me call you later when I know better what time, yeah?” Steve throws his phone onto the couch and turns in Danny’s arms, and they grin at each other. “Okay,” Steve asks with an arched eyebrow.

“Better than okay,” Danny says, stepping closer, the toes of his shoes touching the toes of Steve’s as he slid his hands down the back of Steve’s pants to cup his ass, pulling him closer. “Fantastic.” He leaned forward and pressed their lips together, winding their tongues slowly together as he starts to back them up towards the hallway. “Amazing.”

Which is when Steve basically ripped his mouth off of Danny’s, fisted his hand in Danny’s shirt, and bodily yanked him into the hallway and down to the bedroom, where he started yanking on Danny’s shirt to peel it off his body. Danny might have contemplated complaining but he was too busy yanking Steve’s tank off to care.

As soon as Steve’s shirt is off Danny surges in to kiss him again, pushing him back onto the bed and crawling on top of him, because he can’t get enough. Can’t get enough of the feel of his skin under him, the feel of his lips. Can’t get enough of the way Steve’s lips taste, the way his tongue feels against his own.   The way Steve’s fingers feel digging into the flesh of his hips and pulling him down on top of him, the press of their hardons together and Steve groans into their mouths.

“Danny, Danny,” Steve says, begs, pleads, and Danny doesn’t know what he wants but he’ll give it to him, he’ll give him anything in this moment, but he can’t make himself stop kissing him. Down his neck to bite at his collarbone, running his hands down Steve’s torso over the hard muscles, fumbling with the button and zipper on Steve’s jeans and delving his hand inside and down, feeling Steve’s hard dick and brushing it with his knuckles. “Fuck.”

“I don’t think an hour’s enough time,” he mutters against Steve’s skin. “I wanna make you come and come and come again, I don’t want you to ever stop coming, Steve.”

The noise Steve makes at that makes Danny grin and sends a shiver down his spine to curl in his toes, but then his world tilts and suddenly he’s the one on the bottom and Steve’s fingers are yanking on his pants, not even bothering to unbutton them or unzip them, just pulling them off and down and then his underwear too and when Steve crawls back up his body they’re both naked and Danny can’t breathe.

Steve is talking and Danny has to concentrate to hear him. “… can’t leave me, Danny, you can panic and you can freak out but you can’t leave, you have to stay, okay? Okay, Danny?”

“Hey,” Danny says, hooking his hands under Steve’s arms to pull him up and in close, face to face. “Not going anywhere. Really.”

“Not you,” Steve says, looking down at Danny with so much open and raw honesty that Danny has to reach up and touch his face, rub a thumb over Steve’s cheek. “Promise me.”

“You want a blood oath,” Danny says, sliding his hands around the back of Steve’s head, fingers through the short spiky hair. “I’ll do it. I’m not leaving, babe, I promise.”

“Good,” Steve says with a smile that makes Danny’s heart thump in his chest, and then Steve’s covering his mouth with his own again and everything else fades away but this. This tongue, these lips, those hands.

Steve hand wraps around Danny’s dick and Danny lets out a moan as Steve laughs, pulling his head back and closing his eyes as he brings one leg up to get under himself to push up into Steve’s hand. “God, Steve.”

“Come on,” Steve says into his ear, tongue flicking out against the shell of it.   “You want it slow or fast, hm? How do you want it this time, Danny?”

“Oh, is this a competition too,” Danny growls against Steve’s neck, reaching down to grab Steve’s dick as well, pumping a few times slowly. “Huh? Who can make who come faster, who can talk a better game?”

“Actually I’m really asking which you’d prefer,” Steve says, laughing. “But if it turns you on to think I was making it a competition…”

Danny looks up into Steve’s eyes and his breath catches. “Just,” he says, his hand faltering on Steve’s dick, everything faltering. Because it’s Steve. It’s _Steve_. Steve and _him_. “Oh, god, just, Steve, please, I don’t care, just don’t stop.”

Steve’s kissing him again and his hand is going faster and Danny’s trying to keep up but he keeps losing it because Steve’s fingers just feel so good on him, his tongue against Danny’s, his lips, stealing the air from his lungs and ripping his heart out of his chest and stomping on it in the best way possible.

“Fuck, babe, I’m gonna, just, keep, fuck fuck _fuck_ ,” Danny says, not even aware of the words falling out of his mouth as he comes, explosions behind his eyes and fireworks and them damn cartoon hearts and birds and motherfucking unicorns or some shit, because oh, wow, it’s been a long damn time since he’s come that hard.

He feels frozen in time in the moments afterwards, doesn’t want to move and break the spell, Steve’s forehead resting against his, until he realizes he’s not jacking Steve off anymore and hasn’t for a while.

“Hey,” he says, feeling exhausted and spent. “Did you… you need to.”

“I did,” Steve says, breathing heavily as he falls to the side of Danny. “Watching you come like that woulda done anyone in.”

Danny lets out a burst of laughter and bites his lip, closing his eyes to collect himself as Steve rubs his hand over Danny’s chest and stomach. “Just so you know,” he says, voice decidedly shaky but not caring. “I usually have some semblance of self control.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Steve says, tone cocky as hell as he leans forward to whisper in Danny’s ear. “Is yet again, I just fucked your world view up.”

“If I had the energy, I would punch you,” Danny says.

He falls asleep as Steve snickers into his shoulder.

+

Danny wakes up wrapped around Steve, his arm flung over Steve’s stomach, leg inserted between Steve’s, and they’re both naked. He grins and slides his hand gently over Steve’s hips and up his torso and counts his rips, watches him breathe.

“Mm,” he hears from above him, Steve’s breath rustling Danny’s hair. His hand comes up to stroke up Danny’s back. “Time’s’it.”

Danny glances at the clock on the side table, running his fingers lightly back down Steve’s chest, bending his head to kiss Steve’s pec. “5:06,” he says, scratching his nails down Steve’s belly and lower still, sliding his fingers around Steve’s dick and pumping once, slowly.

“Danny,” Steve breathes, fingers digging into Danny’s waist as he pulls him closer. “Kono.”

Danny halts. “Excuse me?”

Steve laughs. “Kono and Chin, we’re meeting them for dinner. We had said 7.”

“Okay,” Danny says, lifting his head to look at Steve. “Do not ever say any one else’s name when my hand is wrapped around your dick, got it?”

Steve’s laugh turns into a moan as Danny starts stroking him again and the arm wedged between Danny and the bed comes up to grab onto Danny’s shoulder, fingers digging in and pulling on it slightly. “Move a bit, I can’t reach you,” he says.

“My turn,” Danny says, sucking a kiss onto Steve’s abs. “You got to watch me come earlier but I didn’t get to see you.”

Steve laughs and then hisses as Danny bites his side and then soothes it with his tongue, stroking his dick long and slow. “Faster, Danny, enough foreplay,” Steve grits out.

And it’s true. He’s well and hard in Danny’s fingers. But that’s not what Danny has in mind. “Maybe I don’t want to go faster. Maybe I wanna take my time. Maybe I want to see how long I can make you last. Make you beg for it.”

“Fucking, shit. Just.” Steve freezes and his hand slams down on top of Danny’s, stilling it. “If you want to make it last then stop talking.”

Danny laughs, tonguing around Steve’s nipple. “Mm, you like that? You like me talking? What do you want me to say, babe, hm,” he asks, stroking just the slightest bit faster. His own dick is hard and leaking against Steve’s outer thigh and he ruts slowly into him, pressure not enough but he enjoys the tease. “You want me to tell you how much I want you? How much I can’t wait to make you come? How I wanna hear the sounds you make when I make you come?”

“Please,” Steve says his fingers digging tight enough to hurt into Danny’s neck, his hips jerking up in time to meet Danny’s hand. “Please, please, Danny, fuck, _yesyesyes_.”

Danny pulls back to look at Steve’s face, his eyes closed and face tilted up to the ceiling, mouth slightly open as he pants before he bites his lip and his fingers clench on Danny’s shoulder and he fucks into Danny’s fist. When he cries out, that vein in his neck standing out and pulsing, Danny’s so enthralled it almost doesn’t register that this is Steve coming. All that registers is that he gets to see Steve like this, vulnerable and uninhibited and wide open like this. For Danny. All for him.

Steve digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and breathes heavily and smiles open and free and suddenly Danny doesn’t need to come anymore, doesn’t even _want_ to come anymore, he just wants to lean over and seal his mouth to Steve’s and never come up for air again.

“We should take a shower,” Steve says when Danny pulls back to look at him.

Danny frowns and searches Steve’s face. “How did I not know?”

Steve blinks up at him. “What?”

“How did I not know,” Danny repeats, blinking a few times, and it doesn’t even register that he’s got a tear falling down his cheek until Steve’s frowning and reaching up to wipe it away. “How the fuck did I not know I loved you like _this_ , Steve?”

Steve smiles and wipes at his cheek again. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, bending up and rubbing their noses together before kissing him softly. “Just matters we know now.”

“I just don’t get how I didn’t know,” Danny says, flopping over on his back and blinking up at the ceiling. He lifts a hand to yank through his hair. “I mean. I’m not stupid about myself, Steve. I know myself pretty damn well. I may not admit to everyone how I’m feeling about a particular thing or person, but I usually know my own damn feelings.”

Steve leans up on an elbow and looks down at him. “Is this another freak out?”

“No,” Danny says, reaching over and taking Steve’s hand in his. “Not entirely, not totally.”

“Come on, lets shower. We need to tell Kono and Chin we’re gonna be later than we said,” Steve says, kissing Danny’s hand before he lets it go and gets up off of the bed.

Danny watches Steve digging through clothes in his bag and pulling out new jeans and t shirt, and then digging through Danny’s bag to do the same. He smiles to himself. “I just don’t get how I didn’t know.”

+

They shower together and wash each others bodies and then Steve turns Danny around so his back is facing him and reaches around to jerk him off, his hard-on fitting into the crack of Danny’s ass.   “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t come earlier.”

He ruts against Danny and doesn’t even try in the slightest to make it go any further than external friction, but it’s scary and weird and maybe a little bit of a promise and hot as hell. Danny comes so hard he almost blacks out.

Danny’s still breathing hard and trying to blink past the dazed haze he feels when Steve comes against him and he reaches back to hold onto Steve’s hips, pulling him closer because he’s just not ready to let go of the feel of Steve up against him like this.

+

“How can you even say that?!”

“This is a classic song, Danny!”

“Oh my god,” Danny says, throwing up his hands as Steve reaches over to turn the song up, drumming his hands on the steering wheel. “Steven. Afternoon Delight?”

“It’s catchy,” Steve yells with a huge smile.

“It’s lame as crap,” Danny yells, his smile just as big.   “Come on, Steve, skyrockets in flight? Afternoon delight!”

“I think it’s a good song, and I think it should be our song,” Steve says, nodding excitedly. “See? My mottos always been when it’s right it’s right!”

“Okay, first of all, what are you, 15, our song,” Danny says, laughing so hard he can barely get it out. “Second of all, if we had a song, I said _if we had a song_ , it would not ever, ever, ever be this lame!”

“But we just _had_ Afternoon Delight, Danny,” Steve says, motioning between them. “And then this song comes on? That’s karma, or fate, or something.”

Danny clutches at his stomach and just continues to laugh.

“Fine,” Steve says, motioning to him. “Fine, you choose. What song would you choose?”

“Babe, I’m not choosing a song,” Danny says, reaching up to wipe at his eyes, having laughed hard enough to cry a little. “That’s teenage shit, where you sit in front of the radio and read meaning into the lyrics like the song was written for you and it’s never fucking true and you think back on it later and realize how stupid you were for ever thinking it was and it’s always a song you loved deep down in your soul way back then but now you can’t even fucking stand it anymore.”

Steve frowns and looks at him. “Okay, Danny? I was kidding. I think you’re kind of being serious here.”

Danny sighs and rolls his eyes. “Rach and I had a song. Bon Jovi, I’ll Be There For You. I love Bon Jovi, but I still can’t listen to that song.”

Steve nods. “It’s a good song.”

“It’s also a song about loving someone even when they leave you, and making a last ditch effort to make them come back,” Danny says, looking away. “Which ya know. I didn’t get when I said it was our song at our wedding. I just liked the I’ll be there for you, I’d steal the sun from the sky for you.”

“I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing,” Steve says after a moment of silence. “Aerosmith. That was Cath’s and my song.” He shrugs and looks at Danny. “Which was mostly just because we saw Armageddon in the theater together years ago, but now just makes me think about how she just keeps leaving me missing her.”

Danny reaches over and takes Steve’s hand in his and squeezes. “There we go, once again proving we are the saddest sacks in the world.

Steve laughs. “Yeah, we gotta stop doing that.”

Danny grins and turns to look at him. “You know what, babe? I got the perfect song.”

Steve snorts and looks at him. “Yeah?”

Danny grins. “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family.”

Steve stutters out a surprised laugh and jerks his hand out of Danny’s. “Barney? Seriously,” he howls, cackling so much Danny thinks he may just drive them off the road. “Why can you quote that?!”

“Grace,” Danny says, and then holds up a hand when the next song comes on, Foreigners I Wanna Know What Love Is. “Oh fuck, I love this song.”

As he listens to it he shakes his head because he knows from here out, this will now be their song, even if he never tells Steve it is. Because, the song says in my life there’s been heartache and pain and I don’t know if I can face it again, but then it says I wanna know what love it, I know you can show me. So yeah.

Damn the sap that still lives in him, Danny thinks.

Steve reaches over and squeezes Danny’s shoulder, shaking him slightly.   “Good song.”

Danny shakes his head and grins, turning in his seat to face Steve. “Did I ever tell you that Matty and I went to Bon Jovi for our first concert?”

+

Kono greets Danny with a bone crushing hug, which surprises him but he happily returns it, kissing her cheek. “How you doing, doll?”

“So good,” she says, grinning and bouncing over to Steve to deliver the same.

Chin laughs and jerks a thumb towards Kono. “She got to spend time with Adam today.”

Danny smiles. “Ah.”

“You look happy brah,” Chin says, hugging Danny and pounding his back. “Good to see.”

“Am,” Danny says, grinning over at Steve before taking a seat. “Great vacation.”

“Brocation,” Steve corrects, pounding Chin on the back and then letting go and coming to set next to Danny. “Hiking, jetskis, surfing… Danno caught his first barrel!”

“Oh woah, and I missed it,” Kono whines, sitting across from Danny and frowning petulantly. “No fair. As your teacher I should’ve been present to witness!”

“Sorry,” Danny says, raising his hands. “If its any consolation I didn’t even know I’d caught my first barrel until Steve told me.”

“That just makes it worse,” Kono says, punching Danny on the arm.

“Ow,” Danny says, laughing and rubbing the spot. “Your love taps hurt, babe.”

“Who said it was out of love,” Kono says, leering at him and propping her feet up in his chair next to his legs.

He rests a hand on top of her ankles. “Should make it a team trip next time,” he says, looking at Steve. “Ohanacation?”

Steve snorts. “No, Danny. No no no.”

“Ohanation,” Chin wonders.

“Vacahana,” Kono asks, and then giggles as their waiter comes over. “Four Longboards and when they’re empty, keep ‘em coming,” she says, waiving a credit card. “On me.”

“Yes,” Steve says, pumping his fists in the air.

“Just the beer,” Kono says, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Okay, I’m going with Ohanacation as the least offensive,” Steve says.

Danny whirls a finger of celebration in the air. “Score one for Danno.”

Kono looks between the two of them as the beers arrive. “Seriously, you two look the most relaxed and happy I’ve seen you two in way too long of a time,” she says, grinning.

“I said the same to Danny,” Chin adds, nodding. “But yeah, same for you Steve. You guys should have more brocations.”

Danny smirks over at Steve. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say no to that.”

“Me either,” Steve says with a wink.

“So,” Kono asks, swinging her foot over to the side to kick Danny in the butt. “Did you rekindle the romance?”

“Does your cup runneth over,” Chin asks, laughing.

“Should we be expecting a renewal ceremony,” Kono asks, giggling with Chin.

It’s nothing new. It’s not out of the ordinary. It’s the same every day run of the mill teasing it’s always been but when he looks at Steve he finds his expression dead serious and just the slightest bit of terror in his eyes.

“Yep, renewed, rekindled, cups are runnething all over the place,” Danny says so Chin and Kono don’t notice Steve’s expression. “What did you guys do this weekend?”

What he’s not expecting is for Steve to reach over and unwrap his fingers from his bottle of beer and thread their fingers together. He’s _not_ expecting that.

He raises his eyebrows at Steve. “You sure?”

Nodding, Steve swallows, squeezing Danny’s hand. “Without the re.”

Chin looks down at their hands and clears his throat. “Ah,” he says, and then raises his beer. “Ho’ omaika’ i.”

Danny frowns. “English?”

Chin grins. “Mazeltov.”

Danny sorts. “Also not English, but at least I understand.” He looks over at Kono, who’s still blinking at them. “You alright?”

“Ya’ll had sex,” she hisses, dropping her feet from Danny’s chair and leaning forward. “Seriously? Ya’ll did it?!”

Steve claps a hand over his face. “Jesus, Kono.”

Kono grins from ear to ear. “I knew it! All these years I’ve been teasing you I knew it was really there underneath all the bullshit! I knew it!”

“Well, we didn’t,” Danny says, and then shrugs. “Okay, I didn’t.”

Chin snorts into his beer. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, jerk, seriously,” Danny says, laughing and grabbing his beer with his other hand since Steve’s still got a stranglehold on his right one.

“Okay, I’m buying dinner too,” Kono says, bouncing in her seat. “You guys, this is great!”

Steve laughs. “Why is it that great?”

“You’re an idiot,” she says pointing at Steve, “and he’s an idiot, and I love both of you, and you’ve both been miserable for so long it’s gonna be amazing to finally see you both happy at the same time.”

“Agree,” Chin says, lifting his beer up for a toast. They all clink beers. “To finally finding happiness.”

And Danny thinks damn straight. About fucking time.

“Okay, but no PDA’s okay,” Kono says, holding up her hands and waving them in front of her. “Ya’ll are like my brothers and I don’t wanna see it.”

“We’re not going public,” Steve says, and then turns to Danny. “I mean. Are you okay with us not going public?”

Danny snorts. “I wasn’t expecting us to tell them yet, I’m fine with us not going public. I don’t feel the need to make statements.”

Steve nods. “So. I mean. Just.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It’s a need to know, family matter. Okay?”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Chin says.

“Except for the outburst from oh bubbly one over here,” Danny says, pointing at Kono.

Kono giggles. “I lowered my voice.” She shrugs. “Ish.”

After they get their food Steve reaches over to steal fries off of Danny’s plate and Danny smacks his hand. “Getcher own!”

“Mine didn’t come with fries, Danny,” Steve whines.

“So _order your own_ ,” Danny says, shielding his fries from Steve’s. “With your own money, not Konos.”

“But she clearly said she was buying dinner.”

“Tightass.”

“Stop fussing at me about me being fiscally responsible, Danny!”

“Let me ask you, when you have to buy gas to fill that behemoth of a truck up, do you die just a little inside,” Danny asks, holding a hand to his chest. “Does it just make you cry a little?”

“Well I guess it’s good to know nothing’s gonna change,” Kono says, grinning at Chin.

They clink their beers together and watch Danny and Steve bicker well into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey now that it's over I just wanted to acknowledge that I did a lot more Talking in this fic than I normally would with them, because first this was me playing couch psychologist and giving them what the couples counseling and just regular therapy I thin they need and two... They just need each other so badly, and they've been separating themselves, and they just needed this catharsis.
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> You can find me on tumblr here under [@lovethesnark](http://lovethesnark.tumblr.com). 
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> Fanfiction Website  
> MOST of my fic is not on AO3, though all of my H5O and beyond is as AO3 didn't exist yet and it was too much to archive. It can be found on my website at [LoveTheSnark.com](http://www.lovethesnark.com).


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